Christmas Eve in India
gymnasticating across Ahmadabad rooftops,
five long-tailed langur holy warriors
dressed in gray
orchestrate a deliriously intoxicated street wedding procession
below, parading greenwhite Christmas cars
and Amitabh Bachchan mud flapping rickshaws line the streets,
while gushing rainbows of multicolor roses and
streaming orangeyellowwhite callalilies
explode flamboyantly, serenaded by a
cacophony of tubas and dhols with
bamboo wooden sticks beating,
and greenscarlet saried women
dance in effervescent Hindu-Horah Sufi circles,
oblivious to the tubby paan chewing street peddlers
flailing week old squash and green squishy oranges
here, all across this vast mad subcontinent
so ecstatically undaunted,
Mother India again pauses tonight, converges,
then unanimously exhales
signifying another rebirth,
as our grateful planet heartens: “shabash! shabash!”