The Beholder
Communing with a queen

Room 244, Indian and Southeast Asian Gallery, Cleveland Museum of Art
Goddess Ganga, forever combing Shiva’s hair diaphanous dress soaked with holy water bangles jangling in the sticky breeze
Curled catlike in a grotto she watches life roll by: women washing linens, children splashing at play
Here you are now this mausoleum of living ghosts Disarmed, headless, hips frozen a rictus of dance
Far away from your riverbank… I too feel out of place here.
They could have given you a fountain something with which to wet your feet something with which to sympathize
something more similar to home







