a checkerboard pattern some old men must have drawn yesterday

with a piece of chalk on the back of the twenty foot tortoise

smudges under the bare feet and gets fainter all the time as the children run

That nick in the rock is really a kick in the side of the hill. It's where a hoof struck

like a thunderbolt when Khandoba with the bride sidesaddle behind him on the blue horse

jumped across the valley and the three went on from there like one spark

fleeing from flint. To a home that waited on the other side of the hill like a hay stack.

A low temple keeps its gods in the dark. You lend a matchbox to the priest. One by one the gods come to light. Amused bronze. Smiling stone. Unsurprised. For a moment the length of a matchstick gesture after gesture revives and dies. Stance after lost stance is found and lost again. Who was that, you ask. The eight arm goddess, the priest replies. A sceptic match coughs. You can count. But she has eighteen, you protest. All the same she is still an eight arm goddess to the priest. You come out in the sun and light a charminar. Children play on the back of the twenty foot tortoise.