By Prem Gongaju
An aged man from the East, I can tell the hoof falls and footfalls of the unwanted and unloved from a distance. Moving among men and beast, I am acquainted with the stable and the sheltered under the thatch. My heart beats in sync with the wayfarers’ beats of long ago. But I haven’t got the gold.
Even so, I felt emboldened by the sea-tossed song of the Celtic Bard,* nearly daring me to embark on a walkabout in the Byzantium of my backyard dotted with the old pecan trees. They were most likely worked by the offspring of “The Good Darky,”** whose shackled forebears were dragged through The Gate of No Return.
No more a paltry thing, I walkabout in the southern wild, and I find the traces of footprints on the road trodden by the fettered feet. Due to the historic disabuse of an antebellum notion held close to their bosoms by the lords and ladies lounging under the soporific shade of Stars and Bars, there won’t be a further reclamation of the road again. That road – that dusty road now sprinkled over with the amazing stardust of grace – is shut.
Circumnavigating back to the Byzantium of my backyard strewn with the sweet, buttery nuts, I put the Shabari lesson to practice by discarding the bitter ones on the demesne. My puffer pockets bulging like chipmunk cheeks, I rise in benediction to the mighty trees, whose limbs, having shed the earthly yield, swayed softly in the sun.
-Samapta-
