Shiva Temple, Palakolu

Knees grating on the cold granite
feet getting numbed by my weight,
I marshal thoughts into coherence
mumbling more than one early morning prayer.

Why do I get drawn, moth-like
to these crowds, babel and mock devotion that I disdain?
Why do I pronounce shlokas in English
and yet don't pray for visas to lands abroad?)

The digital camera grasped crab-like,
I compose and shoot the temple spire in diffused light
to wonder as hundreds of pigeons get aflutter –
was it because I uttered "Om Namah Shivaya"?

(Why can't we who live lives, time our joys right?
Of what use, blessings of sacred rice that slide off a tonsured pate?
Or an ardent, desirously male devout gaze
that's not a spell-binding hymn that Shakti can hear?)