I am down on Main Street
just by bein’ there.
I’m everybody’s special mission.
Ah,
I’m studying
the ways of the world,
the field of mankind.
I have the Earth in view.
I see what I’m sayin’.
Do you see it?

My poetry put you in barns.
No, it’s not clipped prose.
It’s symbol wrought.
I speak from vision’s lair.
You see the symbol on it
and the all-managing meaning.
What does a barn mean?
You got animals in there,
and it’s where you were raised
if you can’t polite society,
or if you don’t know what it means to be human.
Am I calling you names?

Well let’s get there,
to where I wanna take you,
and it’s not the hatred bunch.
I sit in your smile and sing.
It’s got symbol on it.
I sit in your animal and sing.
We are all rough wars.
We’ve got some things to learn about each other.
Can you see the writing on the wall?
We would celebrate that Hebrew saying.
It shows us so much.

We are not kind to each other.
World Kindness Day has an explosion test.
This guy went off on me,
and my kid just stepped on a red carpet.
He was livid
with hatred.
I didn’t understand it.
I thought I’d done something wrong.
You know how kids are,
they play.
He stepped on a standing iron that meant nothing.

It didn’t make any harm.
He was dancin’ into the ashram
on his feet.
No he wasn’t making swirls.
He just got in there in kid shoes.
A little pole he stepped on its base.
You know the kind with tape between them
to guide people in?
I’m describin’ the action
so you can see the picture:
nothing happened.

The thing didn’t get injured,
and it didn’t make any noise.
The man jumped up,
sittin’ there right past the gate,
and started tellin’ somebody they were out of line.
There was no line of people there.
He was just talking to my kid,
ignoring me,
purposefully.
Now who is he talking to I thought
at first.
The man showed me what my kid had done,
like he’d entered Auschwitz
a Nazi protector,
like my kid had really done something wrong.

He demonstrated the action,
stepped on the thing.
I couldn’t believe it.
I was surprised.
Without saying anything,
wanting to get to that Samadhi
so me and my kid could learn
the school of the Samadhi that day,
its lesson,
I half-turned and gestured a mock surprise,
then bellowed my arms and changed my face
a mine of that boy being guilty
of grave concerns,
but I was laughin’ about it
in my eyes and face
it was so trivial in nature
the boy’s infraction.
It was such a good performance.

The man did not appreciate the performance.
He got mad as hell.
I think I said first “He’s a child.”
He made the Shh! gesture to his lips like he was shooting me.
It hurt.
That really isn’t the quiet area.
The way he thrust his face forward and danced on his feet,
I saw the problem,
racial hatred.
They don’t like foreigners in that ashram,
though they’ll pretend to
if they like your name,
and my kid’s Tamil.
That Indian was not.
Wow, the can of worms we can open here.
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram hates Tamils.
No, but they look down their nose at them.

I tried to give him my name but he refused it,
trying to be kind and not answer the reaction
that was bubblin’ in me.
He didn’t give me a chance
to do the yoga.
That man called another man,
a passer by,
Tamil if I’m figurin’ right,
to enforce this prejudice against Tamils,
but all he knew he hated foreigners too.
You get that in India
a lot.

There was a dance,
as the rude individual
safeguarding Nazi ways
showed the other what the boy had done
by doin’ it himself.
If it was really wrong then why’d he keep doin’ it?
Well the Tamil man hated me too.
Why you’d ask,
because the boy had done something wrong?
I asked both if they were concentrating on the yoga.
Those fingers to their lips stabbed me in my heart.
I called out their hatred.
I felt as though
if I said another word
they’d call the police.
I just had to say it:
the Mother is watching you know,
and there I joined my boy on the steps.
They gave off a noise
with their postures
and facial expressions
that showed I had really messed up.

I walked away.
Nithish was almost in tears.
I could see the pain in his eyes.
He was hurt.
He wanted to go immediately,
leave the ashram.
No, we do our Samdhi today,
and I glowed with him
as our foreheads came to that special place,
where we meet our masters
and put their energy in our papers.

On the way out I stopped,
right there in the gate,
turned and faced the man
and said good morning.
I wanted him to see me.
I had wanted to take his picture,
but convinced myself no,
cameras aren’t allowed.
So I stood there,
my camera’s eyes.
He looked at me
and put his hand on his heart,
like he was the most gentil human being,
and said good morning too.

I wondered over the proximities of human behavior.
What mules we are.
I could’ve done better,
but how about you,
do you see the writing on this poem?
This is typical ashram behavior
with guests.
What can we do about it?
We can write poems
and show the world.