Gopi girls

Gopi
gopi = female cowherd

So it’s a secret, gopi girl?
You who hide among the cows
who caress her quivering flanks
in secret places where only you
do not fear to go.

Do you too cover your face in
clay, white as the milky way?
You weave light as it bends,
curves along that infinite edge,
kissing eternity’s face.

When the gopi lock eyes
stars meld, collapse in a moment
of singularity. Don’t mess with
these girls, their curls
are like steel.

Sent to protect the cow at the
centre of the universe, gift giver,
vivifier, they dance to their own tune.
It’s a sham, this flute-playing
androgyne,

this boy who dances and flirts,
he has no interest in skirts or skirls.
Suniti got it right, and Gertrude too,
the cow leapt the moon for you and me,
for me and you.

Sanskrit moth

In the Bhagavad Gita there is the line, Moths rushing full tilt to their ruin fly right into an inferno (11.29). Some moths are content simply to sit on Sanskrit dictionaries and absorb meanings by osmosis. Like this one who is meditating on the ramifications of gola: a widow's bastard. How many hatreds are woven into that meaning? A little further down, off the page as it were is the meaning: a woman's female friend. Astrologically it occurs when all the planets are in a single sign.



I began learning Sanskrit in 2007 and at first I found the task daunting. Now I expect it to challenge me and sometimes defeat me, all the same the climb is worth the view.


Sanskrit

This rock wall is perpendicular–
she scrambles for a foothold
a tiny jutting of rock to grab onto.

The language is perpendicular–
the roots elude her, the gerunds
are thick with meaning and she slips

and falls crashing to the ground.
Picking herself up, she climbs
a conjugation, declines a declension

all the while, the endings are tangling.
Seven mountains she has crossed, each
one higher than the last. The participles

present not too much challenge, but
the passive is aggressive. Now and then
she has etymological epiphanies,

blinding insight and then finds
it was the wrong form, the wrong verb,
an unknown Vedic version.

She has taken to reading the dictionary
forwards, backwards, horizontally and
vertically, even then the sandhi–

internal and external–takes her on
another spin down the rock wall.
Falling is easy, she hopes she never lands.


This poem was performed as aerials and text on 4 May 2008 at Community of Selves, a collaboration between Suzanne Bellamy and Susan Hawthorne held in Northcote. It was later published in Sinister Wisdom.

Plundered poetry

I took this photo in Orvieto, Italy.

I've been reading Sarama and Her Children: The Dog in Indian Myth by Bibek Debroy and came upon the full version of Old Mother Hubbard which I had forgotten had more than one verse. I have unashamedly plundered this rhyme and turned it into one about a cow.


Old Mother Azure

Old Mother Azure
went to the pasture
to get her poor cow some straw
but when she got there
the ground was bare
and the poor cow wanted more

she went to the granary
to buy her some chaff
but when she came back
she was dealing with staff

she went to the farmer
to buy her some silage
but when she came back
she was flying on mileage

she went to the seamstress
to buy her a cloak
but when she came back
she was sniffing coke

she went to the milliners
to buy her a hat
but when she came back
she was chasing a gnat

she went to the snippers
to get her some colour
but when she came back
she was learning to holler

she went to the shoemaker
to buy her some crocs
but when she came back
she was wearing white socks

she went to the moon
to buy her some cheese
but when she came back
she was dancing with bees

she went to the sun
to buy her the world
but when she came back
it had all unfurled

Old Mother Azure
is now in the sky
while the cow jumped the moon
I don’t know why

Fire walkers

On Sunday evening I went for a walk. I could see that something was brewing because there were great scaffolds built across roads and women and men sitting on street corners making garlands. I wandered down to a temple nearby but nothing much happening, past another and I was invited in to see the the Kali in the middle of the building. I nearly went home and then thought I'd go to Kotturpuram bridge where there was a large shrine to Kali. There were crowds of people milling in the street. I stood at the back of the crowd that had formed a circle. A man beckoned me to come through into the circle after removing my shoes and he led me to a place to sit. It was a front row seat and I could see a pile of hot coals between legs. After a while two men began waving palm fronds over the coals, heating them up. And then everyone was standing, and me too, and calls for us all to sit down. No way, not when everyone else was standing. And then they came, men of every shape and size, some carrying babies on their shoulders. I couldn't see so I took photos with my camera held high.



firewalk

in the night a monster a man spiked with metal rods walking trancing his way across the coals that monstrous heat but pain deterred in this place where the sacred and the jostling crowds meet the whole world begins to rock like a school of fish everyone moves at the same strange pace our faces scorched by heat eyes ablaze in wonder at this feat that should bring tormented cries as if a mountain were bleeding lava the blousy flowers of trees shrivelling the rain deferred while clouds gather at the horizon’s edge tomorrow will be wet

Rohini

rohita = red, roha = rising, rohini –3 meanings: a red cow; the star Aldabaran in the constellation of Taurus; a young girl who has just begun to bleed

Rohini sees red

Rohini sees red
It’s not the bull ring and it’s
no matador dancing in the sand
Rohini’s red is of a different
order altogether – her eye
is a giant star glinting red
a galactic trill

I see red
as my car ploughs into
the roan flank – she leaps
onto the bonnet – shattering
glass splintering my lap
as the shards swirl in
galactic thrill

You see red
my friend as you ride
the wave surfing the edge
of yourself calling upon
Gertrude’s favourite
cow of all, a multiple
galactic spill

This poem was first published in Sinister Wisdom 76, Spring 2009

Cow knowledge

This photo was taken from a moving vehicle, hence the blur. It's an image on the side of a truck in Varanasi.


I am reminded today of the difficulty of learning new languages. This afternoon I walked down to the local shops and market here in Kotturpuram, Chennai and bought a book for children learning to write in Tamil.

The following poem was written during the Sanskrit Summer School in Feb 2009.

Sanskrit cow dp63a

From the cow comes a method of learning,
four footed and sure.

Curled around the first foot is the teacher,
the knower, the one who will inspire you
to take that stretch, parse that sentence,
finish that translation, understand that construction.

On the second foot is the student, the driven one
who spends all afternoon finding the right ya
out of forty-seven uses, who drives friends
crazy with complexity.

With foot number three is a crowd of students,
the one you sang with on the beach, the one who
untangled a phrase with elegant simplicity,
the one who understood your linguistic clumsiness.

Cow foot four is the most uncertain. It’s the dragging
foot and the fast-paced foot, always behind,
forever ahead. There is never enough of it,
for time cannot be confined.

Cows and Cyclones

The day before Cyclone Larry hit Mission Beach on 20 March 2006 the cattle who live in the middle of the town formed a barrier to the winds by standing in a circle with their rumps facing out. The following poem is reproduced from Earth's Breath.




Warning

The warning came four days ahead:
cyclone heading in―
but people have lives to live
and the dinner was not postponed
the celebration of season’s change
harvest of fruit from tree and vine.

The warning came three days ahead:
on screen the colours of infrared―
you talk of the curl on the sea’s edge
aware in a way of what’s in store
you know it’s not the same
for those who’ve been here before.

The warning came two days ahead:
the day itself no caveat―
calculate the weight of wind speed
all superlatives already stolen
by cyclone categories one and two
you cannot weigh any more.

The warning came a day ahead:
cattle standing in a ring
rump out, calves surrounded
wind churn will not move them.