Eastern Great Egret: Sounds in the night in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, Tagore's "A Moments Indulgence", I lie in my bed in the home of the parents

Sounds in the night
in Kolkata (Calcutta), India
are many and varied ...

Car horns' combined
at 4 in the morning
sound like a dinosaurs' gathering, ...

Clink, clink clink - the metal pole
hits the ground, ...
the night watchman sounds
like he's awake around 2, 3 and 4 ...

This city is vibrant and awake
in the dream night ...

first Muslim call to prayer at 5 am
in this predominantly Hindu city
where Bengali and Hindi and English
are much spoken ...

a sound system turns on ...

someone starts singing ...

a group of women walk by talking ...

is that a snare drum? ...

and all so early in this sound-alive morning.


And the recent Sikh parade
was so colorful, and celebratory,
with garlands festooning the trucks ..

Religious parades are still many here,
and almost kind of hippy ...

We visited Tagore's house yesterday ...


*

Here's Tagore ~


'A Moments Indulgence

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.'

Rabindranath Tagore

*

I lie in my bed
in the home of the parents,
my friends,
of my best friend from high school,
listening to sounds in the night,
in Kolkata (Calcutta),
in west Bengal,
here in India! ...
and, lingering,
wonder about
sitting, quite, with you,
and singing the
music of bliss loving, ~
a kind of Krishna consciousness,
having visited Mayapur first today ~
face to face,
bodymind with bodymind,
and especially with love and care.