Shakti Rasa

a prose poem to Shakti

I am alive in a sense that has been lost to history. Philologists have known rumors of it. Contested glyphs. Carvings on burnt ox scapulas. Coastal ruins. I am alive the way the fragrance of wet stones is alive. The way red light is alive on your red tongue and red darkness is alive in the red folds of you. I have only ever met one Goddess, always decked in the flaming golden torrent just in front of your spine and pouring out your eyes. I have only ever met one Goddess but I have met Her clothed in a half dozen women, wearing them as elegantly as they wear Her, and I am alive the way the primordial earth was alive in green-gold glory before there were any minds to name Her or separate one limb of Her from another. She's behind my heart and bloomed from shoulder to shoulder, shattering me and warming what is shattered. I am the egg the phoenix nests on, warmed and melted and burned to ash, tempered and smelted and grown from this column of fire, and in the center of this egg I am alive the way the space between galaxies is alive, the way black holes at the centers of galaxies are alive, the way that your littlest toe is alive, alive, a living portal to the infinite star-field, to a simple field by the Michigan roadside, in early spring. That freshly tilled black soil, speckled with perlite. The furrowed ridges of freshly tilled stars. I am seven years old, I am riding in the back of my mom's van, I am on my way to the library where my aunt works. I smell the fertilizer and press myself against the window, entranced by the depth of the black of the soil, and I am alive in a sense that has been lost to history. I am alive the way the fragrance of wet soil is alive.