for Sunwa Mausi (Gangwati Dubri) 3/16/1931 – 2/22/2023

ajodha jaibe sakhiya re jannat jaibe mitrwa
ram nam satya hai, yehi sab ki gati hai

What value has the body once the supernal
spark departs? The galehaar of roses around

your neck is not for you. Now to light a diya,
to offer water, chrysanthemums, and pindas

of rice, ghee, black sesame. Now to invoke the flesh-
burning god. The body’s your last offering, sabe?

The clay lamp falls back into mud; what air, water,
earth, ether, and agni form must hunger, must un-form,

must attain itself: That Which Is Not. Now the pandit
comes to collect your bones, this rite is not for you—

tu mrit lok chala gayale—you tightrope walk
the taut, dark deity of shanti shanti shantih.

We will go to god’s abode
Truth is a god that all will realize—

Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of four books of poetry including Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023), Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir respectively). His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2020. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.