Suttee..... Poem by John E Marks

Suttee, Sanskrit sati ("good woman" or "chaste wife") , a Hindu custom of a wife immolating herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband.

............

Moths fly high

this cold delight

of a summer's night........

their wings sing

but my mind's not right.........

see the showers spark high

in the flaming air..........

sizzling on the water

blowing in her hair.......

and the women heap wood

on the fragrant pyre

and the moths and the flames

shoot higher and higher.........