The stag moves in and out among
Scrub teak and scattered bijasals.
A flame-of-the forest spreads a kind
Of dull, wet-sheened scarlet light.

And my heart cries out, don't fire,
He lives here too, he walks these hills,
And underfoot he feels the earth,
And on his back he feels the sun,
And at night he smells the jungle,
And caresses the does around him.

MAHUA BERRIES IN JULY



Mahua berries in July
lie sticky and white beneath the trees everywhere in the jungle.

The raindrops glisten on the berries:
if you're near a village, you see
men and women and children

gathering them, like ants...bent down,
the baskets lying beside them
gathering up the berries

and dropping them into baskets.
And someone has always started
to boil them in the village,

so if you're coming upwind, you can
smell the sweet, fermenting
smell from two miles away...