Spoiled Soil

Dharti Maa,1

I read a sign today, “Do you know the best way to reduce your carbon footprint?” I’m a simple man, not usually putting much thought into such things, but it struck me as comical and I thought of you. Then I did something that nearly caused my heart to stop. I stepped out into the middle of traffic, the same mistake I made first time in New York, although my feet moved much faster then. Apparently the change in the traffic pattern turned me around.2

I think it was the woman on the other side that impulsively made me cross. She was alarmingly beautiful as she got out of the car, walking cautiously on the soil-stained snow. She saw me there and waited, looking concerned as I might get hit. I tried to stand as tall as I could on those solid yellow lines, not sure which placement made me feel more secure. By the time I had crossed, her gaze had shifted and her son’s persistent tugging had won her over. 3

Distant memories are buried deep, but come up in the most nostalgic of ways. I don’t find the energy to talk about the homeland like I once used to, but this pull between East and West, West and East, it hasn’t abated. I know what you would say, that I never did want a mediocre life. You tried to show me how unjust this world is, how things can change in the cruelest of ways. I should have listened to you. I would’ve spent my short life knee-deep in dung, an honorable existence nonetheless. Instead I’m a pioneer, a choosing with it’s own sort of excrement grooved in my soles.4

I'm ready to return to you, Dharti. I’ve been thinking about the small plot near Bhopal where they are all buried, does any life remain there? Maybe it's time to return to that barren land once and for all. I'm ready to let the toxins consume me. 5

Reduce, reuse and recycle. It’s a mantra my children would repeat often in subsequent years, something they learned in the English schools. Tell them for me, how I wish to return to you. Let them lay me between the apple trees and make my land pure again.6

Jasper7