The Mysore crown begins to tip
when the battalion of boats dock from far West.
And the string
through veena’s quivers,
Her devotion remains steadfast.
Lustrous temple jewels could be retired,
fine gold-woven silks could be hung to rest,
And the ringing echoes of ghunguru could be consigned to memory;
But no man can pry away
Her thick, calloused soles,
worn by decades of discipline
beating and bleeding to talam,
growing from the friction.
Resistance folds into each simple cotton pleat
draped
across
Her
chest.
Condemned as vulgar by the pale man
whose lustful mind cannot comprehend
the bhakti contained within.
Nor the inscriptions left behind
on dried banana leaves for Her disciples to find.
