You can see him strain forward, bend
To the weight of caring. There
Are no spokes in the wheel – could she
Fend for herself, could she dare
To tell him that between him and her
There is only rushing air?
Tag: China
Watch Tower 14
If you died building the wall, they say,
You were buried within it. Upright, maybe,
So you could still see the enemy coming
And stand your ground. Or, if you lay,
Your hands folded, perhaps, you could count
The soles of hurrying feet. Windows and
Arches open the sky in shapes of fear that
Slide along the walls of Watch Tower 14.
Hills of blue and square skies threaten to fall
On the reclining or upright dead, like enemy
Feet, with truncheons and knives. A wall
Is such a fragile bridge between living
Deaths and dying lives.
The Magnolia Tree
I watched him set up his tripod
So careful, so minute, so intent
And certainly the tree deserved
Every lens positioned, head bent
For long moments – the perfect focus
Of eye and hand, of pure blent
White bloom and winter light.
How tangible the clasp of beauty
And love. I stood so long watching
That I never saw the group of women
Posing. Laughing, jostling, they called
To him to take the picture, to hurry
As they stood under the lovely tree.
Rub for Luck
There is a lion at the gates. Fierce of eye and
Sharp of tooth though he be, he is burnished
To glory by hands on his shoulders, his mane, his
Knee. A hundred outstretched hands, a thousand
Palms a day, on lion-hair spikes and hammered
Nails, once meant to impale all desire for entry
Through the doors to these forbidden
Cities of hope, gleam with the yearnings
Of millions of fingers. A kind of earning
Of lustre lost in the service of kings. Things
Of iron can endure, it seems, till the hidden
Glories of tempered gold burnish each touch
Each pilgrim’s and seeker’s hand saying ‘thus much
Do I render unto Ceaser that which
Can never be his: an empire of stubborn dreams
The sum total of which is this, this forbidding nail
Rubbed gently aglow. Who is savior? Who redeems?’
Look upon these hands, high priest and king
Holier than the celestial harmonies of the house of Ming
Giti Chandra 