Himalayan Wrinkles

The tingle of freshly smoked 

Bidis on my lips, in my fingers--

Belly full from yellow dalbhaat,

Eyelashes and wool socks damp from 

Clouds swimming through valleys 

Caressing vast ridges and moss-covered forests 

As far as the eye can see. Villages sit 

Nestled in the bosom of cliff slivers--

Terraced patterns move along the contours 

Of an every-shifting mountainside 

Like the lines in fingerprints, 

Humans' unique inkspot on the land. 

Bright, pointilist styled women tend 

To their daily chores below, like neon insects 

Exploring alpine thickets beneath my feet. 

Traces of humans like lichen

To a boulder--speckled fireflies at night,

A mirror for the constellations. 

And a certain tranquility settles 

On the soul, perhaps due to anoxia

Of the braincells--an alignment of perspective 

On the ground plan unfolding.

We are trapped by man-made geometry--

Trajectories of success and failure

And burgeoning insignificance. I've escaped

Such compartmentalizations--an aerial view

Reflects an omniscience with pathways 

Of the mind. Dams constructed and worn

Down by unforgiving currents. 

Roads constructed and reconstructed

After foreseen landslides take back

What was once trigonomic chaos. 

There is an order to this thing,

Though not in the sense we seek.

It is an order beyond the reach

Of quotidian micromanagements--

Efforts we so dearly cling to

For definition, a false security.

It is an order revealed 

Through trudging faith 

Amidst tallis fields of terror.

Faith that these switchbacks

And summits, ascensions and tumbles,  

Are not in vain, yet not 

For tangible means either.

Order is revealed in faith of process--

A circular spiral like the golden ratio of shells 

Found atop mountains formed at the depths

Of onyx seas, whose layers sought

Divine position without light or instruction.

Like face-wrinkles whose patterns

Speak of sorrow and elation--

The incomprehensible resolution 

Of faith, that one emotion eventually spills

Into another, laying groundwork 

For jettied habits of love,

All-encompassing terror. Their dialectic

Blossoming like days to come, 

Where we expose ourselves 

To the ever-shifting elements

In faith that our resilient skins 

Will heal again, never in the same pattern

But with shades of process and celebration

Of forces beyond our control.

Also, jubilation 

That we are not alone.

We have the power to shed things

To share things,

To swear,

And swing 

To the opposite pole

Where the clarity of insanity is astonishing.