Devdungri, Rajasthan

Even the night refuses to completely darken
here, as the moon keeps turning each stone

silver beneath our feet; you can play foot-
-ball at night and know exactly where the

goal is. She wrote in that email that Mohan ji
was somehow always hopeful, despite the odds,

"something will turn up," and even as I read it
typed, I knew her emphasis was on 'will;' that

night the moon was our bonfire and memories of
all their years, of making flowers grow out of stone,

were now stories, silvered by age, of those who were
gone, but, they said, those who have come back to us

like colour in flowers, they still see us through these
years, they come to us in songs, like ants, they are in

the small, like elephants, they are big, Kabir sang "Tu
hathi mein hathi ban baitho, cheeti mein hai chhoto tu,"

an' each year as they hold up the silver mirror to those
who're sun-burnt with power, keeping account for a

world that is both concrete and air - here, possible,
and yet, always beyond, "there" - the goal, silver-lit,

remains, despite the night, with us, and the moon still
burns white, and there are always in Devdungri, Gods

lying visible-invisible in the darkest hills of the night.