The Waters Of The Ganges Poem by Gopi Krishnan Kottoor

Have these waters of the Ganges
been flowing down the memory
for small change?

In these wet bones I see the winter
of a dead man's eyes, he could have
sailed my blood.

Have these ghats burnt their dead in waste?
Ashes blow the air, fall in the eye
of the spread peacock feathers
searching first rain

as the boat drifts ashore,
A white flower floating on the water
is a translucence of God.

[Poet's notes: Ghats are a broad flight of stone steps upon the riverbank of the Ganges in Varnasi. On some of the ghat shores, such as the Harischandra Ghat, the funeral fires always keep burning.]