Kali 2016

posted November 11, 2016

kali2

My cheeks sag down
Making me look even sadder than I feel
There are new folds in my eyelids
Pillows under my eyes
Donald Trump wants to fix this.

He will make my face young again
An aging face is a terrible thing
Terrible.
Have you seen her?

Today in my safe town
LGBTQ capital of the nation
A man sneered at my Asian friend and me
“Chicks and Spics,
I can’t wait till you’re all exterminated.”

There are swastikas at Hampshire College
There is graffiti on Mount Tom
The n word

This is not my town.
Has this always been my town?
Whose town is this?

What is a woman?
The Vedas taught that within each, we all have
The three faces of the Goddess

Saraswati Goddess of Creativity,
Lakshmi Goddess of Wealth and Beauty
And of course, Kali the Destroyer

Kali, birth and death
Kali, black-faced, with the necklace of skulls
Kali, whose lolling tongue
Laps up the demons
And ingests them
Makes them part of herself.

Hillary, Hillary
We projected whatever face we wanted onto you
Sometimes Mother Mary
Sometimes Hermione Granger
Sometimes The Devil Kali

But I
See myself. An aging
Imperfect, wrinkled
Striving, laughable
Brilliant, incompetent
Perfectionist, fighter.
Middle aged woman:
Clumsy with the internet
Trying to please everyone
Reinvention at every turn
Plans and lists
Heart broken
But not my spirit.

She gets knocked down
And she gets up again.

Hillary, I want for you
To rise to the heavens
The way you’ve lifted all of us
Shown us what is possible:
To win the presidency
(In any other democracy, your numbers would have given you the prize).
To defeat a bully and a liar
Three times on the national stage.
In your concession speech
You were gigantic
Mama Superior.

I want for you
To sit under a tree with your grandchildren
Like George Washington at the end of his life
Only for you, that would never be enough.
That is not what you want.

What lake is big enough for all the rage of all the women
Angry and aggrieved on your behalf? What
Repository can hold all our tears?

In the Vedas,
The demons multiplied
When we cut off their heads.
Each drop made a new demon
And so finally
Kali came to save us
Put down her sword
Opened her generous mouth
And swallowed them all
And they became a part of her.

We will have to swallow this.
Eventually we will.
But today we fill the lake
With our tears.

Nerissa Nields
Nov. 11, 2016

 

This poem was written as part of 30 Poems in November, a benefit to raise money for Center for New Americans, a Western MA organization that provides welcoming services and literacy for recent immigrants. For more information, or to sponsor me, go here

 

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