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| Dr. Srilakshmi M A |
THE SWORD OF BHAVANI
The plains stretched vast golden,
Sunbaked, into spidery crevices broken.
Heat in swirling dust filled miasma,
Stifling life’s breath, spanning death’s chiasma.
Soldiers in swarms dense geometric,
Charged forth in an array concentric.
Battle cries in shrieks deafening,
A fearsome mime grotesque, ear splitting.
Earth rises in waves blood flecked golden,
Dry plains splashed with blood pools molten.
Leading his armies into battle destructive,
He strove to form a force aggressive.
Many a victory won amidst strife teeming,
Lost lives mourned in a trice, war resuming.
Weary in mien, his anguish rose,
His quivering heart beseeched in prose.
Shoulders sagging, under gloom onerous,
His forehead touched the earth wondrous.
There she stood, dark as the moonless night,
Her tresses ebony filling the sky in light infinite.
Eyes calm and limpid seemed,
Pools placid, an unearthly serenity teemed.
Kneeling low he beheld,
A luminous stretch, the milky way swelled.
Her hair dark its sheen unearthly,
As the milky way spanning galaxies heavenly.
Her form dark as the inky cape of night,
In her hands clasped a weapon of might.
An arc silvery in contrast stark,
Time opportune of momentous spark.
In a trice, into haze thin she vanished,
Plains stained with blood of vanquished.
Her sword in front of him lay,
He clasped with reverence, his foes to slay.
Praying to her, the mother divine,
Creator, preserver and destroyer, a celestial alloy combined.
Vigor renewed, nectar springs amidst sands arid,
He fought bravely with Bhavani’s sword avid.
Body and mind renewed, teeming,
Seas of turbulence parted into focus seeming.
Battle’s tide in Shivaji’s favor turned,
Victory exulting from all corners, defeat spurned.
The benevolent mother, her grace supreme,
A mere glance bestowing fortune in reams.
***
AGNI - THE AWAKENING
An abyss inky dark without beginning or end,
A void fathomless, beings adrift in an ignorant bend.
Slumber so intense, in an epochal roll,
A stillness beyond time’s eternal scroll.
Creator’s spark in a trice divine,
Brightness so sharp, springs from sticks wooden sublime.
In a gentle light a spark seemingly weak,
Into a flame feral, an all-consuming peak.
Into an inferno destructive, consumes its progenitors wooden,
In a primal bolt, the veil of darkness rent so diligently spun,
Darkness into brilliance blinding transformed,
A primordial spark, into destructive deity armed.
Of nature’s elements five, in abodes triumvirate,
Embodied as fire on earthly terrain to relate.
In lightning flashes across atmospheric ether,
In Sun’s blazing aura, the skies smolder in a fever.
Fire as passage betwixt humans and Gods,
Witness to rites for human passage easily trod.
Of bonding eternal and knowledge sublime,
Divining consciousness of the highest prime.
Liberating the straits of life’s egress bound,
In chains worldly, of materials sound.
A travel from life to death,
From death to life in its very breath.
From survival to a thriving abandon.
Twinkling stars have dimmed their rays,
Night’s cape heavy, smothering all brightness lays.
Colors profuse in gay abandon seemed,
Coloring all hues into the unknown teemed.
Now faded, into grey shades train,
Tears of despair pour into an oblivion of pain.
Acts so lithe, now heavily clumsy,
Movements into mere chores changing faintly.
A healing touch, a smile benign,
Call out in a soul rending therapeutic reign.
Warmth and compassion, twin weapons to the fore,
Conquering death’s vice, healing from the core.
From darkness to light, the progress ever so slow,
A veil of masquerade so sheer rent by lightning blow.
Shifting from drudgery of survival towards a new hope,
Into a world magical with empathy’s kind scope.
***
Self-Statement: I have been composing poetry since my early teens. Poems are a way of rejuvenating my mind when I am amid long chores. I compose poems during leisure time and pursue it as a hobby. I derive inspiration from nature and certain significant events. Most of my poems speak about the celebration of life and nature. I have rendered the Ramayana into poems. My latest book ‘The song Divine’ is the Bhagavad Gita rendered into poems.
