Sometimes I write a poem about Hindu culture for my Brahmin husband. It feeds his vague nostalgia for festivals like this weekend's Ganesh Chaturthi. Members of a Hindu household worship a clay murti of the mathematician god Shri Ganesha, and then submerge it at an immersion site. Neighborhoods compete with each other in building the biggest murti, and there are pujas and other rituals. A sweet called kozhakottai, a dumpling made from rice flour with a stuffing of coconut and jaggery, is offered at the temple.Once I made 101 of them, and I'm Episcopalian.

Ganesh Chaturthi

 On a palanquin lofted

by four garlanded men,

the pot-bellied Elephant God

leads a seaward procession.

A believer cradling a small

earthen version of the god

mutters last-minute prayers,

supplications hurried to shore

by a trick of the wind.

Ganapati, let the train come

that I may keep my job. Let my son

pass exams, my daughters marry

into good families.

Water slaps sand, the air clacks

with finger cymbals. The pilgrim

wades out waist-deep, the murti

in his elbow’s crook. He releases it

like a bad debt, a broken promise.  

A pyune rushes into the train station

from a street strewn with obstacles.

He tugs the hands of a stopped clock

into a likely hour while outside, a flotilla

of figurines streams by, streaked features

half- erased, trunks of clay dissolving.