Kipling

The pen pauses
Pervasive memories
Intrude
India calls to favoured ears
Voices in an Edwardian summer
Come, come home
~
Cloud shadows
Wander the foothills
Hawk Eagles
Circle the late afternoon
Round a ruby sun
Resting cool on the snow peaks.
~
Market smells
Bael fruit, pomegranate
Cinnamon and urine
Cries of the barrow pushers
Waltzing cobras
Dance for your pleasure
~
Self mutilated
For the price of life
A legless beggar
Offers the proffered bowl
For coin or spit
To your fancy
~
Simla, quietened by moonlight
Orchestra strings fade as
Victorian maidens, silk and organza
Escape to the gardens
Searching for a lover
Among the camellias, under the stars
~
Retrospective morals
Trample your values
Under heels of lesser men
But listen
Still the dawn comes up like thunder
out of China 'cros the Bay!

The last two lines are from Kipling's Mandalay