The Welcoming Party

Wide eyed and oh-so bushy tailed 

We stepped into new beginnings

The night had landed with us.

Uncertain as our pack laden gait

On the path from the terminal building

We face the clamour of the welcoming party.

For this we had in no way bargained

Front stage in a hawkers’ feverish scrum 

Paparazzi pimping the city of temples.  

The immediacy of money has us floundering 

Hailing a cab at the roof of the world

Where the sky presses down on the earth.

We fly like a wasp through a city hive

That floats aloft the night's buried valley

Travellers cheques strapped against solar plexus.

Incisors hidden in the mouth of a giant

Morning would reveal the splendour of its smile

And our wonder called down from the heavens.

November 2019