Scene in South India

Sitting on the beach near Mamallapuram,
Deep in South India.
Sunset time,
Heartbreak heaven.
A lean pariah dog chases
A dark wild pig down the shoreline.
Black birds wheel over head,
Aching to become shadows again.
 
The world pauses,
Waiting for something.
 
Then over the dunes
Five children race to the surf,
Three patient mothers in tow.
The young ones strip to underwear,
Leap to challenge the sea.
The women are more cautious,
Wade in slowly, laughing,
But watching their children
With great care.
 
One boy, maybe twelve years old,
Blood of Rama, blood of Krishna
Seething in his veins,
Offers his small chest
To the frothing white horses.
He shouts, kicking and punching
Those green white beasts,
Is lifted up, then pushed down
Beneath the howling surge.
 
The Great Spirits all the while whispering,
"Come out a little farther.
O the secrets we will show.
Come out a little farther,
And you will never cry again.
Come out a little farther,
And you will live forever
On a great coral throne,
Ageless and serene,
A perfect pearl for a tongue,
Two black stones for eyes,
And a silence that never dies for a crown."
 
The boy breaks free, shouting at the waves
In his bravado.
Throws a Bruce Lee punch at the inevitable,
Is thrown back into his sister, or maybe his cousin,
Laughing in a spray of foam.
A mother sits on the drenched sand smiling,
Adjusts her dripping blue sari with elegant ease.
 
But this boy ignores the call of the bottle green waves,
Drags a whinning dog into the water instead.
Chooses instead a cot under a palm thatched roof,
Sixty-four years from now.
Surrounded by weeping wife, children and grandchildren,
Saying goodbye.
The sea, a distant cold heart,
Beating out a constant call
Almost forgotten in the midst
Of this impossible, fiery task
Of living.