XI. 1. POETRY — The Mother Awakes

The Mother Awakes

It is midnight; the world is asleep in silence,
The Earth is asleep in the lap of darkness;
Asleep are the heavens, breathless the wrathful winds;
The stars twinkle not in the dense blackness of the clouds.
The birds wrap their eyes with their wings
And rest self-absorbed in their nests;
Animals wander not, nor are footsteps heard.
Then the Mother awakes;
The Mother awakes with a terrible cry.
The Mother awakes; opens Her frightful eyes,
As though a pair of suns.

The Mother awakes, not a leaf moves;
The still flame of the lamp is dying in the room:
In the lonely paths of the city, in the fields and the woodlands and the hills
Plunges in sleep all life.
The surges of the sea-waters
Break not in laughter upon the shores:
Utterly still, unmoving, the ocean is voiceless.
Why then does the Mother awake?
Who can tell what has She heard and is awake?
In the night whose is the silent prayer that has awakened the Mother
To rise with a terrible cry?

When the Mother fell asleep, who ever hoped
That even in the midst of blind darkness She will awake?
Sunk in the night, void of hope, the heart broken for good in sorrow
Even in sleep is startled to hear the fall of a leaf.
The royal Fortune of the mightly Asura,
Proud and cunning and overpowering, Has besieged the earth.
Suddenly a terrible cry is heard, the cry of the Mother;
Suddenly like the roar of hundreds of oceans is heard the
voice of the Mother; To awaken Her sons called aloud the Mother
Like a thunder-clap.

With a grieving heaving heart was there none awake
In the darkest of night for the sake of the Mother?
A few only with saffron robes covering their bodies
Sat in the temple with the bare sword in hand,
Devotees of the terrible Mother,
To anoint with their own blood
The Mother’s feet, wakeful they passed the night.
Hence rose the Mother:
With a mighty thirst, in wrath awoke the Mother;
With a lion’s roar filling the universe awoke the Mother
To awaken the world.

A raucous laughter spurts out of Her mouth, a lightning flash
gleams in Her eyes; Frightful is the blood-red flower of Her anger,
In wrath She swings in Her hands the heads of two titans.
The Mother rises and sends out a grim invocation.

Who art thou at this dead of night swinging the titan heads in Thy hands?
Thou sprayest rain of blood over the land.
The two eyes are like hearths of fire; fearful is the Mother,
Shaking the earth She roams about.
With a loud roar “Arise! Arise!”
Thy voice rises to chase
All sweet indolence.
It is our Mother!
She comes, on Her forehead burns Her eye of death.
Dancing to the rhythm of the clanging of Her necklace of human skulls,
Lo! the Mother comes.

“Arise, arise,” a violent voice calls
Gods and titans and men, all,
A cruel roar here, a high cry of joy there.
It is my Mother!
With burning eye of death upon Her forehead comes our Mother.
Our Mother comes, the human skulls of Her garland dance to tune.

In the midst of storm and battle, sword crashes against sword, body to body resounding;
Fire rains and rushes about in the fight, the skies are deafened
With all the fierce noises, the ears burst, the earth sways,
Blood flows and flows free as though flowing streams.
When, oh when shall we know the Mother?
When Her call goes out like the ocean roar
Wiping off with Her mighty breath the whole kingdom of the titans and the violent goddess comes smiling
Then shall we know the Mother.
The Mother, when She dances bathing in the stream of flowing blood
Then surely we know, it is the Mother awakened at last.

(Archives, April 1980)