| 1935. Professor of Sanskrit |
| on cultural exchange; |
|
passing through; lost |
| in Berlin; reduced |
| to a literal, turbaned child, |
| spelling German signs on door, bus, and shop, |
| trying to guess go from stop; |
|
desperate |
| for a way of telling apart |
| a familiar street from a strange, |
| or east |
| from west at night |
| the brown dog that barks |
| from the brown dog that doesn't |
| memorising a foreign paradigm |
| of lanterns, landmarks, |
| a gothic lotus on the iron gate |
| suddenly comes home |
| in English, gesture, and Sanskrit, |
| assimilating |
|
the swastika |
| on the neighbour's arm |
| in that roaring bus from a grey |
| nowhere to a green. |