Gai<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cowboys
and girls of India
farming in the pastures of Punjab,
Bihar, and Kerala
tending to cows and water buffaloes
are not the only cattle handlers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
women
sitting outside
marble sculpted temples
with hands that never beg, but offer
a palm full of dried long grass
to feed <\/p>\n\n\n\n
the Amritmahal,
Bachaur, Baraguru,
Dangi, Deoni,
Gir, Hallikar, Hariana,
Kangayam, Kankrej, Kasaragod,
Kenkatha, Kherigarh, Khillari,
Krishna Valley,
Malenadu Gidda, Malvi, Mewati,
Nagori, Nimari, Ongole,
Ponwar, Rathi,
Red Kandhari, Red Sindhi,
Sahiwal, Siri,
Tharparkar, Umblachery,
and Vechur<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in the name of God
accept blessings in 20-100 Rupees notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Passersby<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the drive from Austin
to San Antonio
we passed dry lands of sprouting shrubs,
developing mansions for cheap,
quaint towns with dilapidated store fronts
white faces smiling staring
offering to try corn salsas,
homemade chilies, and grainy mustards
a wafting of dust winds,
women, wines
and taverns full of cowboys
that taught us with a glare
how to wring the necks of cattle.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Preeti Shah serves as Associate Director of Communications for the online magazine, YJPerspectives. She is a certified Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness meditation teacher and physical therapist assistant. She has been published in numerous literary journals, with upcoming publications in Literary Heist and Triggerfish Critical Review. Preeti resides in Queens, NY.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/jyotirmoy-gupta-GIwhv2irR9Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}