#pria devi

[pyotra]

Pria Devi, “THE SANYASIN'S WIFE SPEAKS TO THE POET MENDICANT” 

Yes he left here some time ago, days, months ago, Light-years ago? Yes. Yes only to return as the wind-will takes him And you will wait out this or come another day? Time: the season slips its ageing shine Windspin, dustdrift, rich frail leafmold Through ones fingers, yes Yes. I grow older. Plainer. Wood-boned. Time lathes me, hones me to his bent, pares down The half-smiles, winning ways, curved gestures, Lashes locked with dew. I save wastes. And I lift weights Of dripping water, pans, breads and dung for lip. Working, I work. Idle-empty, cross my hands, yes. Dreams slipped my mouth since first he took me. And instead Vision shall call it vision came. And left, A passing guest. And it may come again, That fine stretch, that muscular yearning beyond sense, Yet possible. Just a while. An everlasting sky: the kind of sight that burns Until it leaves quite bare And dies in its own burning. I am stripped of all I know. Yes, waiting for the wind to turn The cheel to halt on its swerve The traveller to ground. Seed and bone, I know them. Then why When all is said and done When the stranger came with laughing open mouth From his land of foreign rounded vowels and pearl-deep seas A land where long-legged beasts run fleeting From the hunter, in lean grace, Why when this shapely boy, child ran his courses Did I turn blind and halt within the moment’s spans? And why this: Knowing the flower was to be had For the taking, did I Turn back, shifting windspin dustdrift shine of day through open hands Turn back To dark and flickering shrine? To absence? And to waiting? You ask me still why this? Yes?

**sanyasin = hindu ascetic / renouncer

[pyotra]

EACH time the gods come they send pain And there is trouble. There is no ease in us. Each time we're accustomed to simpler joys The stranger invades With his unwelcome gift of the unknown. Many times we've tried to mislead This alien with untrue paths and tracks awry Through coarse herbs, jungle grass, a bush of butterflies, By coy fordings over rivers That lead nowhere. Yet not misled, Still strangely stubborn he persists. Conscientious against creepers With banduk and topi* or a line of uniforms, A grate of shambling stones Beneath a tyre: his machine is angry or else sick And we must come to heave and strain at it. He comes to us in dreams Too. Why this? Are we so enviable? Langoti, a leaf-cup of raw drink, Not even a cock to spare for sacrifice. A goat would take a year's hard work. Why this? Last night my old man dreamed An older god: dark, straight and terrifying danced, asked only to be witnessed and adored. Today there was disease in the compound. A spirit sits in the corner Like a fly settling on a wall. I kick a bloodied rag out of my path. I lift my dao. I walk my way into the forest, All gods, whatever make or breed, I give fair warning.

--PRIA DEVI, “Anti-rite”

*banduk = gun ; topi = hat

[pyotra]

Three poems on Ahalya in English, Sindhi, and Oriya by Indian women poets.

“Ahalya was the wife of the sage Gautama Maharishi. Many Hindu scriptures say that she was seduced by Indra (the king of the gods), cursed by her husband for infidelity, and liberated from the curse by Rama (an avatar of the god Vishnu). Created by the god Brahma as the most beautiful woman, Ahalya was married to the much older Gautama. In the earliest full narrative, when Indra comes disguised as her husband, Ahalya sees through his disguise but nevertheless accepts his advances. Later sources often absolve her of all guilt, describing how she falls prey to Indra's trickery. 

In all narratives, Ahalya and Indra are cursed by Gautama. The curse varies from text to text, but almost all versions describe Rama as the eventual agent of her liberation and redemption. Although early texts describe how Ahalya must atone by undergoing severe penance while remaining invisible to the world and how she is purified by offering Rama hospitality, in the popular retelling developed over time, Ahalya is cursed to become a stone and regains her human form after she is brushed by Rama's foot.” [x]

--

Pria Devi, “Ahalya’s Punishment”:

STONE: the gift the gods gave me.

Blind as stone I’d been

or wished to be.

And so, insentient I slept to, and awoke from this;

touched by those bright things that they call gods who neither blink nor cast a grateful shade,

to this and to the clangour, of these epic times.

Vimmi Sadarangani, “Ahalya, the Accursed” (tr. from Sindhi):

It's time and eternity that I was in Sindh last. I have Maintained the account of every moment that has passed since then. My home, its compound, and Mother in the compound, I remember everything. How I wish to go there again and be dissolved in its earth. Accursed Ahalya I am. 

Manorama Mohapatra, “Ahalya: The Self-Fulfilled” (tr. from Oriya):

The touch of no one's holy feet Does she need any longer She shall manifest herself Now by her own will By her own life's thrill. She shall emerge once again From out of stone Her commanding presence Demanding the world's admiration! She ... the daughter of the golden-wombed Mother Earth. From within her Shall sprout the light of intuition And she will be the ruling divinity Of a world Shaped of its own accord! No malediction Can any longer Shake her aspirations. No witchcraft Can any longer Darken The transcendent cosmos— That's her own design! She is what she is! Herself Her Time present Her Time future; She manifests now To fulfill herself. She needs the touch Of no holy feet Any longer! 

[pyotra]

STONE: the gift the gods gave me. Blind as stone I'd been or wished to be. And so, insentient I slept to, and awoke from this; touched by those bright things that they call gods who neither blink nor cast a grateful shade, to this and to the clangour, of these epic times.

PRIA DEVI, “Ahalya's Punishment”