Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's stately Rudra Veena playing of Raga Suddha Todi

"If you visit the Web site of the Online Computer Library Center and look at its WorldMap, you can see the numbers of books in public and academic systems around the world. Sixty million Britons have a hundred and sixteen million public-library books at their disposal, while more than 1.1 billion Indians have only thirty-six million. Poverty, in other words, is embodied in lack of print as well as in lack of food."

from the New Yorker article, "Future Reading"

"It is the good darkness Of women's hands that touch loaves." ~ James Wright

Night falls early now. By six, the moon is out, and thoughts of you rise from the grass like moths to begin their night work. I would like to embrace them in your stead, distant one.

How bright is their rustling on the mind's window! But I don't have your hands to touch the good darkness under their wings, even as my famished body hungers for yours, summer's sacramental loaf.