[1] Gazing across the room, after a stretch of reading, I see a mother and a daughter sitting on the floor, like eggshells, thumbing through picture books, slowly mouthing the words in English, interrupting each other with Japanese and laughter. Beyond them, the bare shoulder of a young woman, tanned and supple, a rounded ridge that rises to a neck and ear (Moshin Hamid, in his novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", made an astute observation regarding such gazing; to paraphrase, he said, men from the Indian subcontinent, given to only chance glimpses of the feminine, tend to be more careful observers of the female form and gesture), becomes a container for light and bustle of the fair in Union Square, down below, as well this longing I am attempting to read through.

[2] Jottings from Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar", sections of which I am re-reading:

"Mainstay of American small talk in India: the American on his bowels"

"Tamils seem to talk constantly - only toothbrushing seems to silence them."

"It (the South Indian landscape en route to Madras) was striking in another way: the people so black, the earth such a deep brown red, the green so green"

"Feral children, demented Mowglis abounded in South India"

[3] Also scanning this list of railway stations, which Theroux jotted down from an Indian Railways timetables, makes me think, wouldn't this be a wonderful tongue twister. Go on, speak the list below aloud, as quickly as you can:

Madras Egmore Mambalam Tambaran Perungalattur Halt Vandalur Guduvanchari Kattargulattur Singaperumalkoli Chingleput

[4] Waiting in line, on Sixth Ave, for a cup of coffee, my eye is jolted awake by the entrance of an American woman, wearing a brilliant hued sequined sari, jewelery, and glass bangles. Given as I am to seeing colors here, always on mute, I think I have stared too long at her, for she gives me an uneasy smile.

[5] Everyone who is in New York City in the month of June should go see Shakespeare On The Run's production of "Love's Labour's Lost": their movable stage The Pool, situated on north-end of the Central Park, their lighting some ten hand-held flashlights, their audience a running commonwealth, ranging from tiny tots to septuagenarians, their acting quite accomplished, and the speedy hours you would spend caught up in the dazzle and jests of the Bard, full of laughter. Oh, and yes, all shows are free but you would have enjoyed yourself so much that in the end you will give them five or ten quid. Go now; yes, it might be better if you can take a girl or a boy to kiss but alone works as well.

You have placed signs of me everywhere. The stones I gave you on the shelf, in the shadow of the old photograph, the banded half-moon piece of agate, on a ribbon, between your breasts.

My room at dawn with its scattering of books and crumpled sheets, on the contrary, is as unadorned as it was at the beginning. Even the bouquet of grass that I placed for you in an empty pickle bottle has gone to rust. Yet, this this calf light at the window, which rubbed against me to awaken me, is the rose of your mouth.

Lying in grass, the spring chill barely kept out by the thin jacket in which we are half covered, half exposed, my arms wrapped around your waist, a shade of crabapple blossom,

I wonder if that boy, who gazed at the lumbering rainclouds through the thorny neredu tree, located in that faraway plateau country, many years ago ever even thought he would come to this season?