True Story from South India
Poem by Paul John Roach
The wild bulls of the evergreen hills
The Gaur
Have left their hoof prints
On the path where we walk
Eight thousand feet up
In the blue Nilgiri Mountains.
They press their two thousand pound bodies
Into the tropical earth above Ootacamund.
If we met such a beast as the Gaur
What would we do, my wife and I?
The forest would become
Suddenly terrifying.
We walk on.
At the mountain’s crest
We come to a cave
Dedicated as a shrine to Hanuman
The monkey god of courage and devotion.
We gaze within
At the painted altar in shadow.
A man in a white shawl sits alone
Chanting, watching.
I have worn the image of Hanuman
Around my neck for three years
During a reverse in my career
As an amulet of courage and hope
In, for me, a damaged world.
As we walk down
The precipitous hills
Statues of Hanuman,
At prayer, yet martial,
Ready for action
Mark the stages
The pilgrims take
On their progress up through the jungle
To that cave temple on the hill.
Below, on a collar between two valleys
Is a bus stop and the walk’s end.
We drop down
Over the yellow green mat of grass
And onto the road.
The chain around my neck breaks
And the image of Hanuman
Falls to the ground.
Initial disappointment
Is replaced by an understanding
That the talisman’s work is done
A threshold has been crossed.
It is the footprints of fear and faith
That lead the journey home.