DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Ashok Niyogi
Lest I forget,
You can get a systematic catalogue
Of stratified minerals
Formed by millions of years
In the valley of death.
After all, it is a major tourist attraction
After walking yards of floors
Through tables of craps and slot machines
As wheels of fortune turn,
The only physical reaction
Is that knees ache,
Ankles complain.
In Vegas
We did not see a single scene of high drama.
Nobody jumped from the 28th floor,
Nobody fainted in ecstasy.
None became an instant millionaire
In this major tourist attraction.
This eternal partying is also a profession.
Nothing to do with fate or fortune, least of all, God
Untouched.
And yet they all had to play,
Compulsively play
With faces of intense concentration.
Herded by the chimera of the yellow metal.
There was a certain unearthly beauty in all of this
Like the beauty that I saw in moonscapes
In the valley of death.
Pink and green and cobalt blue,
The sun reflecting from the quartz of salts amongst rocks.
There was a mirage on carpeted floors
Just as there was on the tarmac road
Through the valley of death.
Below sea level
In the valley of death
The absolute was in the lack of life.
No trees, no shrubs, no birds, no sounds.
And yet, snow-capped mountains
Bordered the valley of death.
Therefore, there was this infectious impatience
For the car to take a turn
For a new palette of colors to meet me.
There was such incredible beauty in it all
Just as there will always be
Form
In stunted cacti
In the valley of death.
And of course there was this sense of compulsion
Of having to do what you have to do
In the valley of death,
Just as there is compulsion in clods of grass
To peep through black volcanic rock,
For strange flowers in the palest shade of violet
To bloom by the roadside
In the valley of death.
And there was a certain jaded street-smartness
Just as there is boredom in the endless crystals of salt
On the Devil’s Link near Badwater,
Not spouting, just bubbling through.
I imagine humans wriggling like inferior species of larvae
Just as they do in Badwater,
In the valley of death.
Humans denominated by the color of their currencies.
Just as there are myriads of shades
In retrospect
In the valley of death.
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