Woman You want me to shrink to ease your pain To bow my head in shame? Because your shame is buried deep beneath your ancestral ash Let Ganga take your piety and wash it well. I will stride as my mother does and speak my words In strange tongues. I have held my belly and bawled When karmic leela bludgeoned The fragile heart within me. My arrhythmic soul Can only dream but Faith is my lineage. Rubescent rivers flow from my story and I fly proudly my red jandhi. You may cremate your shame Let your Maya choke it, smother it, hide it for now. My weighted flight ponders your casket of belief But the sun is in my eye And my bindi whispers Fly. * * * A Jandhi is the flag flown from a bamboo rod to signify the victorious completion of a holy ceremony or puja. Lila (Hinduism) or Leela can be loosely translated as the "divine play. Maya is the Hindi word for illusion. A Bindi is a decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead by Indian women, especially Hindus. Shivana Sharma
Women's Spiritual Poetry