"Mala," an April holidays poem

It’s Easter weekend on the Row, and I’ve just come off of three days straight of 40 productive, rewarding, but exhausting back-to-back student conferences over literary research papers. By Thursday, Day 3, I was doing a lot of thinking about death and resurrection, believe me. I’ve also been thinking about the American commercialization of Easter – coordinated outfit/handbag shopping, forced childhood scavenging for outdoor-contaminated candy, mutant egg-laying bunnies, and a lust for patent leather shoes. The fact that so many people live comfortably with the bizarre commingling of a high holy day and a shopping holiday is a testament to our flexibility, I guess.

There are loads of other commemorative days being celebrated in April, too, like Hindu Ramayana, traditional Chinese Qingming, Jewish Pesach, Baha’i Ridvan, Theravadin Buddhist new year, Earth Day, Cosmonaut’s Day, and probably many more. And, it’s National Poetry Month, for Pete’s sake! So here’s another poem, this one long. I wanted to see if I could (1) write a poem that sounded like a “universalist” chant; (2) write it in 9-line stanzas to represent the multiples of 9 beads commonly found in Buddhist malas, Islamic tasbih, and other kinds of prayer beads, and (3) incorporate John Lennon’s mantra, “Love is all you need.”

Happy holidays, whichever ones you observe…

MALA

In the beginning

was the breath

inspiration exhalation illumination.

It was and was not, stirring

pale light, salt, clay

in a deep cauldron of stars

pitched to one side

spilling gaseous invocations

into thin air—

ohm mane padme hum

ohm namah shivaya

our father our mother

Saturnian retrograde yin yang

nameless spirit unified heart and mind

mitakuye oyasin tanzih tashbih

St. Jude thin ray of hope

grandfather grandmother

Jahveh I Am That I Am

and the breath shaped its perfect

full mouth around the Word

formed us from three elements

set us down in the fourth, fire of the Word,

let us play and burn for ten-thousand years

making oblations in the fire

tears wine sperm tears blood

let us tease spark from vein

and hold it against our skin

until cinders worked their way beneath our nailbeds

until flame licked the bone

until spark curled up in the belly

until the only heat was in the belly

until the air was cool and dry

until the ground went cold

until we understood flame and ash

until we sat naked and shivering

until the rain fell.

Pools formed in indentations

footprints of wandering gods

and on the slick surface of the water

we saw ourselves, clumsy, too fat or thin,

aching and wounded

we saw each other only in that rippled mirror

eyes cast down and fixed

on an image of our own bluing upturned hands

so delicate so hypnotic that we

would not cross the water with a poultice

would not set the bone

would not speak the Word

and darkness fell.    In the blackness

silhouettes against a pocked moon

we pushed and pulled the muck

into mountains snowcapped and treacherous

until fenced in, we came to adore

the dark and silvered mirrors

distorted images of bent knees, sloping backs,

small breasts, muscled thighs.

We formed our small trembling mouths

into awkward shapes

stood half-erect with heads tilted

filled our lungs with air

filled the air with only hoarse wavering

grunts and hisses

could not fit our mouths around the Word.

The earth, this pool, is the cracked mirror

in which we are still caught as

ten thousand planets heat and cool

ten thousand stars blink to life

scatter, explode in the watery night

while we shiver, naked,

dim shadows against a cave wall, mouthing

the Word that would release us

the Word we clamp behind our teeth.

In the dark, in the cold

in crags or on sudden plateaus we strike

blindly at rocks, dig at the root

but always make our way back to the water

back to our selves

rippled and silver in brief glints of fog or moon

broken when the breath moves the Word

across the surface of the water

where we lean in, locked in a long gaze.

And sometimes we hear it,

the perfect Word skimming the water, pushing up

along rock faces, drifting into gaps with a sigh

a beautiful sad tremolo

that clashes in dissonant chords

with cries from across

a distant mirrored pool

brackish now, encircled in a white salt ring,

our temporary crust of light.

ohm mane padme hum

ohm namah shivaya

our father our mother

Saturnian retrograde yin yang

nameless spirit unified heart and mind

mitakuye oyasin tanzih tashbih

St. Jude thin ray of hope

grandfather grandmother

Jahveh I Am That I Am

make my jaws unclench

make my fists uncurl

make my heart split open like a ripe plum

make my arms reach out over the water

make my eyes look up from this illusion

make my silver blood pour out over the ground

make my lungs fill to bursting, my mouth round,

help me make the sound, the only prayer, the Word—

            Love