Diurnal Musings(NaPoWriMo 2016 Anthology)

#0: Puja

Puja is a Hindu ritual involving the offering of articles to God. It typically involves the burning of camphor, an incense sticks or oil lamps(diyas); cracking a coconut, applying kumkum and turmeric powder; offering flowers and various other symbolic gestures.

Tendrils of coconut fiber flew up from the flames
Of camphor, slithering around in air like snakes
Looking for prey to land on; it settled its midnight
Body onto the boat-shaped petal of canary-yellow
Flowers that let the tendrils slide into them like
Drops of water; the flower was tenderly lifted up,
Rising to the heavens, rising to adorn God on his
Golden throne, God stuck on glazed paper, in swathes
Of industrial ink; it lay like a mouse in a corner
Of a room- in the corner of the portrait, looking
At God with its periphery vision, it lay still and
Silent. Nobody must know. Nobody must know.
Incense and marigold fought to display their most
Appreciated assets of nauseatingly sweet, cloying
Smells that swung in tandem with the smokes of
Camphor, like porpoises swimming up from their
Fiery coral, coconut husk, like a murder of crows
Flapping away from their perch on an autumn branch,
And incense sticks that simmered up silvery clouds;
All of which settled on the skin, skirting the rivulets
And ponds of sweat like parched grazing animals,
The hordes of which cascaded into the watery
Ocean of saliva, mixing in and sweetening it--
Juicy coconut flesh-fish teasing the coral-taste bud
And sweet banana-eels making them smile.
The golden clapper struck against the chipped
Bronze edges, fragments of it that had been lost
In older houses with different people, its vibrations
Playing with the smokey glossary of animals and
The tangy-sweet air; and amidst this, right then
And there, the world lulled itself to a dying-charcoal sleep.