Nine nights

I.

My goddess is a patch of sky

between two raffia palms -

a bird streaks down like a spear

thrown by one of her arms.

My goddess is a curl of cloud

on the skyline somewhere

and the wingspan of a kite’s her crown,

tangled mesquite’s her hair.

My goddess is a snapped off stem -

an arrangement of spice

fortuitously made in the kitchen.

A rich bubbling of rice.

She is, and isn’t, made of clay,

she’s whole seasons, not just four days.

II.

She sends me a sign that I don’t

instantly recognise -

the mind admits only a want

to relate might to size.

I look at the sky and forget

the grass beneath my feet

and I think she’s a mauve sunset

where seas and heavens meet,

but the horizon’s just a line -

the limits of my eye,

a sunset is as much divine

as an earthworm or a fly.

She is broad as winds, warriorlike

and a stick thin match ready to strike.

III.

The temple dance of northern lights

she sends me through a friend,

and I watch the worship mesmerised

before I comprehend.

Likewise a different autumn night

there is a quiet fall

of moonlit shreds of small insights -

but their sum’s not small.

She’s among my friends and my folks,

the least of my brethren -

she doesn’t need to be invoked

and worshipped now and then.

She demands not one thing from me,

just lets me breathe and walk out free.

IV.

She sends me more, but by this time

I am on high alert

get clued up how she leaves her signs,

offhand, hidden by dirt.

She isn’t there in lotus buds

hundred and eight, or more

neither the soil we call sacred,

nor a foot drawn on the floor,

she sends me a pulse of light and dark

a scratch of old perfume

and news of distant loved ones marks

her grace within my rooms.

She’s a cell, a text, telephone ring -

a massive world of tiny things.

V.

She’s not a fast, she’s not a feast -

she’s core of grape and grain,

what goes into the mouth is least

for it passes out again.

She’s hard to trap, she’s hard to fold

in sandalwood and stone,

and eight rare metals never could hold

and claim her for their own.

She’s not the conch, she’s not a song

she’s not in lamp nor flame.

Nor is she the bell, nor overlong

chant of a special name.

No exact angle quite defines

her intimate bounds, and what’s divine.

VI

She comes to mind about this time

with all my womenfolk,

stretching behind in one long line,

half lost in incense smoke.

I knew no goddess as a child,

maybe not even now.

I knew her through my mothers’ smiles

an aunt’s kiss on my brow.

I knew her from the silky sands

that ran between my toes;

through elephant grass, savannah lands,

where the sandbur grows.

She’s woman, and burr, and long ago

she pricked my cuff and never let go.

VII

And now from time to time I get

distracted by my cuff

at the mass of spines that firmly sits

and won’t be shaken off

Does she like things neat? yet won’t let

me snugly button them up?

I finger the fabric and get pricked

her spines are somewhat rough -

but there’s a smoothness obvious too.

As we move from spot to spot

the garments change, the years, the views,

but the massed burrs do not.

She’s a spine, a roughness - in my side,

and smoothly endures through the ride.

VIII

The gods don’t come, they don’t return -

it’s me who comes and goes,

falters at the gates and then turns,

afraid to get too close.

The marquees are made of floodlights

and a thousand-strong crowd,

inside my space her touch is like

silk poured on a raincloud -

and when she can, she lays her hand

on my temple and cheek

though I may see the raffias and

a spear-like sparrow streak.

She is bird-flight, and animal-track,

but she doesn’t arrive, nor go back.

IX

She looks at me through the prayer niche -

her seal’s on calligraphed walls.

On the crucifix. On flesh and fish.

And gutters and urban sprawls.

Her footmarks weave the river bank

into its sunlit scarf,

her thumb print’s on the desert flanks

and on the ocean surf.

She loosens out the date palms coif;

asks neither wind nor breath,

a full moon night she quite shrugs off,

nips out the wicks of faith.

She’s never at home and always near,

she’s everyWhere and everyHere.

Today marks the end of one of the main festivals in my community in India, celebrated over nine nights. I got sent various images by friends and family members the past few days and looking at them this is what happened.  None of the pictures belongs to me, I don't know the copyright holders, credit where credit is due and I do emphatically wish to salute the amazing creativity and expression, kudos!

One of the things I like about my community is the pluralistic approach to religion - it allows space to the devout and the atheists and the agnostics, we are all God's children whether we believe in an Almighty or not, or the forms of our beliefs, or how we observe our festivals. India has been practicing live and let live for centuries, probably the most ancient community to adopt this as a motto, for all I know. But recently this pluralism has been under attack, which is concerning and saddening. 

My own devotion quotient is irretrievably flawed, I leave my family members and friends to intercede on my behalf, and they do a fantastic job - the evidence is amply clear in my life. I'm deeply grateful for that. Therefore, I find it preposterous this vicious effort now to herd us all into one 'right' way of observance, to create one path where there are obviously many. 'There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.' The clueless have a claim to a way and a kiss too!

Happy Festival to you, whatever it is you are celebrating today. May all our prayers in all their various ways find their mark.





And we are getting together for the Halloween at Write...Edit...Publish later in October, see you there.