MONSOON PALACE SUNRISE

MONSOON PALACE SUNRISE



How can we moan about the flies
Neath orange sunburst morning skies?
When Monsoon Palace high up can
Behold the hills of Rajastan


Their countless shrubs of darkening green
As ornate as the eye as seen
Consume the mist which dawn omits
And plays the tunes of crickets lisps


The driver quaintly offers tea
As fluttering bats and angry bees
Dwell high in ancient ceiling traps
Whose ‘ horror film’ walls won’t collapse


The windows nearly Mexican
Of peppered broken wood slats tend
To radiate an attitude
Of India’s long forgotten moods


Those moods which soaked with Gurker’s blades
And ‘Slaughtered Sultan’ accolades
leave but a ghost that haunts the stars
Which twinkle above Udaipur


The white and dusty ‘Death Trap’ road
Climbs high and winds then finally finds
The stained fawn towering devil doors
Of Monsoon Palace Udaipur


And he who once upon his throne
Knew well these staircases of stone
Who sipped The Ganges near his tomb
Took refuge here from old monsoons


He with his servants watched the flow
That drenched the settlements below
Though in his time and still today
Disease is surely cleansed away

How trite to talk mosquito bites
At these majestic wuthering heights
To Rangiwas we head instead
To gather thoughts about the dead.



TIM SANSOM 25TH JUNE 1999