Raga

In the evenings, in the shadow of the dorms 
during the summer writing conference, a small 
group of women would sit under the chestnut 
tree. We could hear the tones of their quiet 
conversation as night deepened, until the outlines 
of their figures softened. Then one of them would begin 
to sing— what we learned from others at breakfast time 
was a raga: improvised, undulating; a pentatonic 
framework lofting a thread into the atmosphere. 
Trembling with color, it drew us to our windows, 
out of our beds where we were trying to sleep 
in sultry heat uncooled by air conditioning. 
As it receded, it felt as though every hair on my
body exhaled a breath I didn't even know I had been 
holding in. Years later, I still think of that sensation—
to have been brought to the brink of a calm 
as stupendous and as simple as a field of fireflies.