Bakandamiya XII.

I am here at a temple.
                    I raise my hands, in prayer,

and say, time has reached its destination.
          I should have known

there was no need to go looking for death
                    elsewhere, beyond its own borderlands.

And in a strong sense of absurdity,
          I go to vigil

and pray.
         Say I am going back

in time, where a story can walk into my body.
         I can live under the rule

of what history has said to my ancestors,
                    provided I pay my tribute of songs

and prayers.
  History is here

on the tip of my tongue.
          I watch my despair

saunter among fallen columns and masonry,
                    I watch it bare out on an aged wall

like some half-lit shadow. I am too much of a sleuth
         to offer joy.