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songs of alagi

temple of brihadiswara

11th century  a d

 

we shall speak first of the emotions [rasa]

nothing goes on in drama without emotion

 

                                          bharata in natya sastra

 

rasa 1

 

on the banks of the venna

palm trees      cobras           papayas         langurs

on the brink of the jungle

peacocks        lizards             fireflies          mangos

on the brink of the rice fields

baskets                          flood gates      mosquitos      ibis

 

 

rasa 2

 

days spent

cleaning rice           carrying water

washing clothes of god     dancing

making garlands

fanning the carved god     sweeping

dancing                             lighting the lamp

preparing incense

and dancing           coins and flowers

tossed at my feet

 

 

rasa 3

 

       too old now to dance

       for the god

       to wear my anklets

       and sweeten the air

       of thanjavur with their bells

       for the king

       of the chola empire

       for rajaraja

       builder of a new temple

 

rasa 4

 

       sweet milk

       buttermilk

       warm from my

       goats

       sweetened with gin         

        ger

strengthened with mus        

tard

milk for the servants of shi         

 va

milk for the builders of his tem         

ple

 

 

rasa 5

 

to sculpt the great nanda

the guardian bull

to smooth the mortar

between stone blocks

to secure the wood

of scaffolds on trusses

to paint white the finished walls

as the snow covered mountains

my lord shiva calls home

 

           

rasa 6

 

sweet square

sweet mandala

entered by the rising sun

 

 

rasa 7

 

shiva born on the flame

of the breath of your dying father

rudra roaring

 

 

rasa 8

 

stone lingam

father of an ascetic

and father of a god with an elephant head

god with no third generation

god wearing a chain of skulls—

have the granite stone in my garden

make it the coping stone

of your tower

        


 

 

 

Early in the writing program at USF, I started a series of persona poems in the voices of Christian saints. Could this be the basis for my major project? While searching the online catalog for reference sources, I pulled up a subject heading to Saints- Hindu. That led me to a small pamphlet entitled Women Saints of the Tamilnad by M. Arunachalam. Fascinating. No one had to be blinded, have a breast hacked off, or die for a god. These were stories of holiness I wanted to share.

 

Alagi was the first saint I wrote about. Her story introduced me to the Chola empire under Raja Raja (947 CE – 1014 CE) in southern India. She lived along the track the workers used during the construction of the Brihadisvara  Temple at the Chola capital, Thanjavur. She provided them with spiced buttermilk in the hottest part of the day. The boulder in her garden became the capstone of the temple’s vimana (tower).  Lord Shiva appeared to Rajaraja in a dream and told him about Alagi’s part in building the temple.

 

Her story awoke in me a desire to see Thanjavur. This led me to make a trip to India over winter break. (At the time I worked at E. O. Lawrence Berkeley Lab and had vacation built up. That was the 2000 new year, when some people thought the last thing I should be doing was flying.) I justified the trip by saying that if I were going to write about India, I should experience what I was writing about. The visit to her temple is one of the clearest memories I have from the two-week trip. The cobblestones were wet with recent rain. I left my shoes on a shelf and approached the massive building in wonder. . . .

 

How does a poet describe a world that is strange and new, while keeping the reader in a state of similar disorientation? For this poem it meant eliminating capital letters and punctuation. Interlinear spaces line breaks were put into play. I began with the setting in rasa 1, moved to what I thought would be the typical day of a temple devotee in rasa 2, then Alagi introduced herself in rasas 3 and 4.

 

This poem and the series that it belongs to seem like they were written by another person. I am struggling to find my connection to it. Yet it heralded an adventure that was so unlike me as to seem like a fantasy now. They became a chapbook put together as an assignment by Aaron Shurin at USF. Since then I have added to the series, but only one has been published in a journal.

 

Why do we feel an affinity for a place to which we, our friends or our family have no connection? The arts and traditions of Egypt, China, Japan, and India have called for my attention at different point in my life. Though I have no claim on these countries, poems about them do come to me. What writer could refuse them?

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