Ode to Mother Kali
They do not sell your statues in the shops, O Mother.
Buddha, Ganesh, Lakshmi, all in vogue,
adorning lobbies of comfortable houses,
prosperity to those who already have,
a scent of spirituality to mask the rot
but you, Mother, are not in fashion.
no marketing niche for you,
no category
the analytic mind sees you coming,
scythe gleaming in the sun
to once and for all
cleave the Real from the unreal
it drops everything
and flees
Mother, we talk amongst ourselves
about how life is suffering
life is unfair
sometimes I imagine
that when I get to the soul’s world
I can write God a strongly worded letter
demanding immediate and radical changes
to the Cosmic Game
before I agree to come back down again
but you,
you are just having the time of your life,
are you not?
and those who come to know your dance
can see it everywhere
I bet that was you
with your arms around your long-suffering servant
as the car gracefully pirouettes through the air
with him in it
I see you taunting the forces of death
just try
i dare you
i double triple dare you
touch him
go on
cross that line
and see what happens
I bet that was you
coasting inland
atop a chariot of tidal waves
gathering souls to yourself
like a blackjack dealer in Vegas
ready to spread them out again
on freshly-watered soils
I bet that was you
standing on top of the crossbar in 1988
when Charlie Redmond took that penalty
and you were laughing your head off
I bet that was you
dancing with a fury
and a speed
that makes you seem everywhere at once
stampeding through opposing armies
like a Nebraska linebacker
as tanks shatter through walls
as men pierce through boys
and the game gathers pace
And I know that is you
standing behind your chosen sons
the great Masters
who like the Buddha
will not move
will not sleep
until your six billion children
one by one
awaken
rub their eyes
and wonder why it took so long
to truly live
your dearest, dearest, dearest sons
dearer to you than your own Life
yet you strap them to the leaden harness of a human body
as they hold their nose and take the plunge
immersed and alone in the sea of ignorance
but you stand beside their bed
as they lie hooked up to the machine of maya
you hold their hands
as they siphon the ingratitude and begrudgery of the world
out through their very bones
Oh Mother, often I marvel how they can stay on earth for so long
and when I do
in the silence
then
I sense the starlit footprints of Your Compassion.
Mother, the PR department have been on to me
they say you are giving God a bad name
you are not projecting the right image
they have given me a 492-page manual on politically correct etiquette for cosmic gods
they want you to study it
they want you to put some clothes on
and behave yourself
maybe then, they say, they’ll even be able to sell your statues in the shops
but their stilted ideas about compassion
bind and blind compassion itself
because the more I discover you
I see your naked sword is indistinguishable from your cooling touch
your reaping is indistinguishable from your sowing
that the hour of death is as much your Compassion
as the hour of birth
and that the entire universe
is but a one-act play
of your Love
.
Dear Shane
How blessed I feel to have stumbled across your poem… Thank you so much for sharing your inspiration with us. I am deeply moved and feel the echos of it ripple in my heart. What a wonderful imprint for our minds.
That came straight from your heart of wisdom. So grateful - thanks again…
Fiona xo
A gift..a true gift.
Thank you.
Dear One,
This is truly a gift. I welcome it and you into my heart. Kali, her beauty is radiant for those who have eyes to see. Sometimes I glimpse it. I wrote this poem/prayer under the influence of her energy. I have done this with her before.
Let my body open to you,
completely, without the self
preserving ways of ego.
Let the crematory fires
consume what is false in me,
trusting the thrust of rising fire.
Let no thought impede this flame,
no fear of social opinion.
I agree to be naked now.
Keep me a flesh offering-
a burning coal in your hands,
a necklace for you made of my bones.
Thank you for your poem.
mother is in my soul She is everywhere Belief is everything
Thank you, Sharvari, for your kind words. I agree with your sentiments about the comic. I think people are often guilty of viewing spiritual figures through the filter of their own imperfections and fantasies, but at the same time, I find it much more rewarding to just concentrate on my own spiritual practice rather than try to ‘cast pearls amongst swine’ and explain to them….
I visited your page after going thru the following URL
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2007/06/kali-comic-from-virgin-comics.html
It is really sad to see the above post.
Your poem is wonderful,thanx for sharing the same!
Thanks Abbie!
I don’t actually write poetry all that much, so it appears that the Ramprasad in me was let out for a 30 minute stretch of the legs before being reconfined to quarters
It was very interesting the circumstances under which I wrote this poem in August of last year. I had just obtained a beautiful image of Mother Kali which had belonged to my teacher Sri Chinmoy. The image itself seemed to exude such power, beauty and purity that I didn’t know what to do with it, I just put it in a corner of my room, I could barely even look at it. Then after a few days, I was meditating before my teacher was due to arrive (incidentally, this would have been one of the last times I would have seen him before he departed his earthly frame in October.) but somebody who was looking after the delivery entrance to a restaurant owned by Sri Chinmoy’s students located close to the meditation grounds fell sick and I had to replace him. And then I was sitting there and all this coalesced feeling came out in what you see above. I normally try to be very mindful of what I put up on my site to ensure that the widest possible audience can be inspired by it, but somehow I just felt impelled to put this up too. I’m so glad you got joy from it.
ps I love your email address
I ran across your poem when I was researching images of Kali. It is a great poem. It is very much written in the tradition of Ramprasad. Are you his present incarnation albeit without the madness? I will let others know about your website.
Abbie from Atlanta, Georgia, USA
My mother’s son! I can say no more…
Thank you Sevati. I was kind of swept up in this wonderful feeling when I wrote it and even now when I read it some little reminder of that feeling comes back to me. I wasn’t sure what anyone else would make of it though, so I’m happy you liked it.
I love your poem…it speaks to my heart.
Beautiful!