Raw Umber

Brown fingers and little toes
in Anegundi
near Hampi.
straight out of school.

everybody wants a picture taken. or a sweet.
I give them both.
a camera becomes their only mirror.
they look at their reflections
and laugh
at how everything is brown.

the floodgates open. the dam is unleashed.
the river overflows.
and mantapas swallowed by the rising current.

I have known these ruins, and traced with my eye
the scratchy paths
that were erased by the dust