Myth

Years drift sluggishly through the air, is a chanting, the long years, an incense. Face upon face returns to the barbed horizons of the foggy temple; here lies a crumpled leaf, a filthy scarlet flower out of placeless pasts, on the motionless stairs. Old brassy bells moulded by memories, dark, unfulfilled, to make the year come back again a recurring prayer. The stairs seem endless, lifelong, and those peaks too, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri; uncertain, impressive as gods. I dare not go into the dark, dank sanctum where the myth shifts swiftly from hand to hand, eye to eye. The dried, sacrificed flowers smile at me. I have become; a diamond in my eye. Vague grieving years pit against the distant peaks like a dying butterfly as a bearded, saffron-robed man asks me, firmly: Are you a Hindoo?