after a day of trekking 
	we camp 
at Saurkundi Pass 
the sky 
	dusted with stars 

morning mist 
rolls over the creek 
the sky 
lends its blue 
to the waters below 

footprints 
on the dry riverbed 
do trees 
remember the water 
that once flowed by 

Ganga plays 
	hide and seek 
with Himalayas ...
those bends i need to take 
to find my self 

Sant Kabir says 
	like a chadar 
the threads of life 
should be loosely woven 
to allow the give-and-take 

Poet’s Notes:

1. “Breath on Breath” is a tanka sutra. And sutra means “thread” in Sanskrit.

2. Chadar is a woven cloth used to cover the heads of both Muslims and Hindus.

Publisher’s Note:

An expanded definition from Vocabulary.com Dictionary reads: “A sutra is a literary rule or aphorism, or a collection of them. Sanskrit literature includes many collections of sutras.

“The literary meaning of the word sutra is a bit different from the way Buddhists and Jains define it. In Buddhism, sutras are like scriptures, containing the teachings of the Buddha. Similarly, in Jainism, sutras are the sermons of a spiritual teacher.

“In Sanskrit, sutra means ‘thread,’ and traditional ancient literary sutras attempted to weave knowledge, threadlike, around and into their few simple words or syllables.”

Source accessed 10 August 2024:
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/sutra

Bio: Kala Ramesh