A warm memory

Warm brown faces, dust-sweat streaked,
drooping trees and baking streets.
Brave little voices clamouring
in frenzied games of songs and stones.
Lost embraces from the past.

(Reworked. First draft 11/04/12 @The Priory. Listening to Jagjit Singh.)

Memory of a young Namboodiri

An ancient house of stone
And a statue of stone.

Incessant chanting in a dead language,

Flames dancing in the dying day,

The kiss of incense on the quietened soul.

He arrives after his ritual bath,

Honest: in wet thin cladding.

Caresses and adorns the stone

In gold, silk and sandalwood paste.

He bathes, feeds and worships the stone.

The young watch and their spirits move,

In tender, exciting, rising piety.

Hands folded, eyes wandering,

Foreheads ablaze with godliness,

The hair on his chest gripping their hearts,

The mysticism of his chanting

And the purity of his lineage

As potent as an aphrodisiac.

They worship the man as much as the stone.