Pilgrimage

The arch of my foot aches.

Soon, we’re walking through nettles, a yellow paddock,

               fresh ginger packed between the gum

And tooth.

In excess, sugars become fat, a kind

               of sealant. Organs bleating

On the forest floor.

A first step.

Blue radiance, paper that receives ink, coffee with cream. By day 8,

               I can’t remember life

With my family.

Copyright © 2023 by Bhanu Kapil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 15, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“In 1995, my father proposed a pilgrimage to Badrinath, India, describing how, on his last attempt, the snow had come early. Turning back, he stopped for two nights in Kankal, a bare-bones ashram managed by my mother’s elderly cousins. Thinking of my father walking in the mountains for days, I was curious about his thoughts. What happens to intrusive imagery on a long walk? Do we inherit the desire for walks of this kind from our forebears? The last time I attempted the pilgrimage, it rained so much that the path fell off the mountain into the valley below. I, too, turned back and made my way to Kankal, knocking on the heavy, wooden door until someone let me in.”
—Bhanu Kapil