Recuperation has opened me to a world of care, of the slowing down of time, of discerning what success and healing actually mean. I’ve not been able to do too much during this period but writing, as always, has saved me, kept me company, helped give meaning and order to my recent experiences.
I’ve been getting more comfortable in the shaky, messy vulnerability of being human. As always, when this recognition is real and magnified, I turn towards the goddess Kali. “Dear Kali” came out of this communion with her.
Thank you to everyone for your warmth and kind wishes. The healing is taking place, slowly, surely.
“Dear Kali”
When fire roams
like children forgotten
by hands that made them,
when from the heart’s
poisoned romance
all black things
fight for space,
screams blast the ocean
inside Shiva’s throat,
You come
dancing in the mania,
melding heat to cold,
fire to water.
Love is rage,
a raga.
My collapse your stage,
dancing lady, stotram lady,
gorgeous mother,
roaring in the void of night
poison is swallowed
by the grace of throats.
No shame in screaming,
you scream, no shame
in pain, no shame
in being children
in being the child
of the hands that made me,
from the blue throat
of your husband,
your love births babies,
tears, funereal wails
of the living
and their forgivenness.
Your child
in fury, in trembling
uselessness,
lost, secure, alive,
I am, I am.