Palakol

Knees grating on the cold granite
feet getting numbed by my weight,
I marshal my thoughts into coherence
and mumble more than one prayer.

(Why do I get drawn, moth-like
to these crowds, babel and mock devotion that I disdain?
Why do I pronounce Shlokas in English
and yet don't pray for a visa to lands abroad?)

The borrowed digital in my crab-like grasp,
I squint up at the temple spire in diffused light
and then wonder as hundreds of pigeons get aflutter
was it because I uttered "Om Namah Shivaya"?

(Why can't we who live lifes, time our joys right?
of what use blessings of sacred rice on a tonsured pate?
or an ardently desirously devout gaze
that's not a spell-binding hymn that destiny can hear?)