The Rickshaw Termination By Patrick Henry

In Delhi ten years back, time stood still. Cycles flourished. Cattle grazed the streets. From morning mist temples loomed vast as heads of gods, Carved in curves of sun and moon. The sky hot, ethereal. In dawn's half-light a centaur-shape enters the bare street, Stealthy as a cat, almost silent but for that slight low Creak of pedals that drive the rickshaw into view To pick up anyone to anywhere they need to go. Journeys' end, he rolls the rupees paid into his dhoti, All he owns but for the bike and a blanket to lay down And sleep in on the ground until another day, another Delhi; Guarding above his dozing head his vital green machine.

But India moves into the G8 league of wealth: Quaint old ways ruled out that run down the land. Off your bike, Krishna, come orders to ten thousand drivers, On the scrap-heap as our steel- men and miners once found. The U.S. traffic gulps fuel too fast and kills the air. They grab more oil from others and smash-up their land. India takes its traffic off its harmless biker And chokes its cities in dark fuel that's fired and burned: And puts its youth on telephones to cold-call the world And sell it trash it never wants or needs. A monster or mad machine wreaks havoc on the world. An alien force named U.S. that could end all of us.

Copyright ©2006  Patrick Henry

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