Fox Footprints/Under the Sandalwood Tree

by Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth

Under the Sandalwood Tree

From a Catalogue of Vedic Paintings

In the early morning
Under the sandalwood tree
Sits the woman, in her robe of an ascetic,
Under the sandalwood tree
Playing the instrument, Poöngi,
Calling the peacocks and snakes,
The peacocks that stand about her in a circle,
With spread tails, a wall of bronze,
A wall of jewelled bronze, ohé!
And the snakes that sway their throats,
Their rippling throats, mailed and slender,
To the sound of the instrument, Poöngi,
In the thin hands of the holy woman
Under the sandalwood tree
In the morning,
The early hours of the morning.