THE BLACK GODDESS Black and fierce in the hottest of fires, Creator and devourer of universes, Unloving goddess unravelling her locks With an air that compassion mocks Points her scourge at earth's progeny And bids the scorch'd Eye of Infinity To gaze in awe at the Dance of Kali! As dark as the vortex is Earth's Mother, Giver and taker of life now and forever, The very matrix of past, present and future Worlds where Man, this most mortal creature Dares his sight most irreverent to venture Into realms where suns into suns churn Hurtling galaxies into Kali's canopic urn! How deep does our soul yearn to enter Perilously into Kali's black sapphire Where mysteriously shines a radiance That shows the goddess hotly dance Wet with the fruitful surge of desire! We are moths flying into the flame To whom life, death and rebirth are same. Night's shivering moon pales out of fear, The stars their light on a common bier Shed not in the cold morn mourning rays For there is only one law that with us stays Which is that none may face death's goddess And hope to escape her love-lethal caress: It's a black hole that sucks all into nothingness! So for eons on and on dances the great Kali And in never-ending gyrations our galaxy Through its birth and death pangs writhe Harvesting hard-pressed souls with the scythe Of merciless swiftness that makes a mockery Of the cankering cares of hopeless mortality. We want life eternal; death awaits us eternally! Kali's tongue lolls out of her gaping mouth, Around her neck dangles to north and south A necklace of skulls, forerunner of life's demise A sure thing whose reversal we cannot devise. In one hand she holds a blood-spattered sword And in another a severed head and beyond word: None dares to watch; but none may deny the Lord! Why do we fear our own death, the end of strife Of all pain and suffering, of all that fiendish life In a cosmic dance of sweet-promising deceit Stores for us only to unseat our towering conceit? In rage and sadness are we drawn to the call Of the infinite void; seeking the great fireball That will ignite our darkness, we stumble and fall! As the earth sinks into the silence of the night And Kali's blood recedes in the faltering light The bones of our ego in the big urn are laid bare: All the ravages of lusts and of many a care Are finally laid to rest into the burial ground Of the heart where the Black Goddess's mound Erects its last decrees for life's final round! Oh, Kali! Kali! Fearsome is your look And deathly to man which fate forsook! Is there a way out of the gathering darkness Or is man but a footstool for your greatness? The seasons come and go; the moon waxes And wanes sooner than lasts the phlox's Flighty fragrance that scent-laden coaxes. From birth's first cry to death's opening door Our ailing spirit does in the sky weightily soar Only to sink back into the chasm of our days. At forlorn faraway stars we strain to gaze As if deep in the heart's deepest core We knew they were created in times of yore So that we may live in Kali for ever more. Then why worry and not let our Black Goddess Writhe and in lascivious dance draw us Slowly into her hot heaving womb? There lies life-giving warmth for our tomb And wondrous ripples of rejuvenating ecstasy In the very midst of soul-shattering perplexity That makes us dare to dream of immortality! Claudio Wye February 5, 2000
