The Ganges at My Window – Jayant Kashyap

India, August 2018

At an end of it, a dome — people

here make a god of anything.

And by the river an almost-town,

its name Godcountry.

I learn eating from cobs there.

By the river, always so much more:

I’ll send you the sky when you’re ready.

By the river, a window. It never opens.

People sometimes move to and fro — it stays.

By the Godcountry, the river is almost dead.

Water, a lost friend.

People throw some coins (some change!)

in the river by the bridge;

in the West, they do that with fountains —

either way it becomes a token for some said god

to fulfil their demands.

I think about some other rivers too: about

the waters that are near, and about Thames —

Thames though is a wee bit far.

At some distance, someone dies

for the lack of what’s thrown;

someone else lives in it.

The river at my window, made of gods,

hardly ever dies.

When it rains, it’s the Ganges, when

it does not rain, it is still the Ganges.

Jayant Kashyap is a Pushcart Prize-nominee, one of whose poems was featured in the Healing Words awards ceremony, and another won the third-place in Young Poets Network’s Bletchley Park challenge. He is the co-founding editor of Bold + Italic, and a food blogger. His debut chapbook, Survival, comes soon.