Chai shop

near the small burning ghat.

and varanasi begins to cast it's spell once again or maybe, through the opacity of the passing days, I begin to notice...

adrift within the alleys, a twisted geometry where maps become redundant...these soft places where time remains undefined by the occasional motor bike or smart phone, where the gathering saddhus offer glimpses of orange between the afternoon shadows...where the small fires are fuelled by calendars burning in the flames of the heretical...(these last days a change, the flames no longer to ward off the cold fingered nights of winter but a resumed refutal of time; even here where sun is a temporary stranger offering slight warmth upon breezes snaking up from the ganges)...

yesterday upon pandev ghat a powercut, the night dark upon us we sat: north and south cctv and streetlamps glimmered, sodium casting an orange glow upon distance...and another day passes as we continue to watch, where we become in these moments other shadows, small dreams of the city swirling between voice and the silvered ribbon of the ganges...