Sadhu

Melancholy is a palace filled with
the splendors of what might have been, as now
Is a naked sadhu with a small bowl
Begging for rice as the crowd rushes by

O say can you be in the face of time’s
evanescence, no rest, never stopping,
Always devouring not just the dust path
under your feet, but your feet, flesh, your thighs

Is the sadhu before thought, beyond thought?
Where has his loneliness gone, friend shadow?
Does he remember the feel of cotton?
Has he become his own great grandfather?

Nothing his desire, the empty temple,
Now speaks the venom tongue of the Nagas