The Fires Of Benares Poem by Patrick L Kalahar

Floating down the Ganges
On my way toward Benares
I came around a bend in the river

Everywhere I looked there were flames
With sparks dancing in the air like fireflies
Astounded by the light
Steps of stone led down to the river
And ended in platforms for funeral pyres
Burning like furnaces in the dusk.
Each had a priest who tended the fire
And swept embers still glowing
Into the sacred flow

The bearers, thin and frail
Stood subdued with arms held out—palms upward
As if still holding the dead
In gentle homage
Or testing the weight of air.
Onward I floated
Around another angle of the river
And into Benares
Out of the land of death
And into life
Ephemeral but always returning