Moon at Half Past Noon

Beneath Nanda Devi’s white, unblinking eye,
where air turns thin and stone learns how to sigh,
a silence grows, not empty, but complete—
a rhythm known by pulse and patient feet.

The soil here is not greedy, does not strive,
just offers up what knows enough to live:
a stubborn root, a lichen’s stony lace,
the bitter green that finds a crack’s embrace.

We take the breath that left the juniper’s bough,
the strength that fled the mountain goat’s last hour.
The grain that shook its life out in the sun
is in our bowl, its living journey done.

The axe that falls does so with murmured thanks.
The hand that grinds the roasted barley thinks
of stone and rain, the field that fought the storm,
the slow, cold work of earth to keep it warm.

The scent of smoke, of pine-resin and dung,
is incense here. The pot where gruel is hung
sings not of lack, but of a deep exchange—
a life for life, across the mountain range.

The cheese is pressed from milk the goat gave up,
each cup of breath drained from her warming cup.
The flatbread baked on iron over flame
holds captive all the sun’s departed name.

We taste the rock in water, cold and clear,
that drank the ice, the glacier’s ancient tear.
We taste the wind in leaves of wild thyme,
the shadow’s chill, the dust of borrowed time.

When snow locks deep and no foot walks the trail,
we remember the deer, the turnip, the withered kale.
We remember their flesh, their light, their will to grow,
and feel them inside us, keeping us from the snow.

For nothing that was alive is ever gone;
it sleeps inside our blood and carries on.
The goat becomes the strength in a child’s hand,
the barley’s breath becomes the song we land.

So let the world outside call it a feast or fast.
We eat what was alive, right to the last.
And when we too are called to give our breath,
we’ll lie down, smiling, at this table of death.