Wednesday 5 November 2014

Bonfires

source

Each year

Our myth

Comes alive

 

From the pages of Purana

The demoness*

Holika steps out

Taking Prahlad

On her lap

To sit on the pyre

The flame touches the sky

Prahlad lives while Holika dies

 

The intent is to kill

The child devotee Prahlad

Who sees his God Vishnu

In every atom of the universe

It is a blasphemy of course

So the child is sentenced to death

By his father, a demon

To make the job easy

Prahlad’s aunt Holika

Comes forward

No fire could burn her

But Vishnu wills otherwise

So Prahlad lives while Holika dies

 

Each year

The myth

Comes alive

 

The old mother Earth Herself

Becomes Holika

Spreading Her firewood arms

She becomes Her own pyre

Where She sits perhaps mourns

Having lost Her magical charm

She lets Her children set fire

Her sputter bursts into a painful flame

That reaches the infinite sky

We utterly do not know

Who will live and who will die

 

Each year

The myth

Comes alive


source

 


Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Bonfire @ PU

*had to use this un-English(!) word for a female demon