Poems to Mother, by Kazi Nazrul Islam
Goddess as Avenger 1
How much longer will you
Stay hidden behind a clay statue?
Heaven today is subjugated by merciless tyrants.
God's children are getting whipped,
Heroic youth hanged.
India today is a butchery; when will you arrive, O Destroyer?
God's soldiers are serving terms of hard labor
Exiled to desolate islands.
Who will come to the battlefield
Unless you come with your sword in your hand?
(Kamal, 73)
Goddess as Avenger 2
Wake up, Shyama (Kali), wake up, Shyama!
Appear once more as demon-chopping Chandi!
If you don't wake up, Ma,
Neither will Your children.
Oh Giver of Food! Your sons and daughters starve,
Running here and there
More dead than alive. This sight
Doesn't pain your heart?
The cremation grounds You so love
Today are the land of India.
Come, dance on this cremation ground;
Breathe life into these skeletons.
For I desire, Ma, a free wind;
Energy I desire; I desire long life.
Shake off Your sleep of delusion, Ma,
And wake up this Shiva'
You're surrounded by corpses!
(McDermott, 75)
Goddess as bringer of equality 1
He who has seen my Mother
Can he hate his brother?
She loves everyone in the three worlds;
Her heart cries for all.
With her there's no difference of caste,
No distinction of high and low;
All are the same.
If she sees a Candala
Like Rama with Guhak
She clasps him to her breast.
Ma is our Great Illusion; highest Nature, and
Father our highest self;
That's why one feels love for all
We feel love for all.
If you worship the Mother
Hating her children
She won't accept your puja:
The Ten-armed One will not.
The day we forget the knowledge of difference
On that day only
Will Ma come home to us.
(McDermott, 144-5)
Goddess as bringer of equality 2
Now there will be a new mantra, Mother,
To awaken you.
You'll stay always in our homes,
Your image no more dropped in river water.
The hearts of men and women of all castes-
That will be the image we worship,
Ma, the pilgrimage place where you reside.
With energy and devotion I'll install your throne there
Where no high-and-low distinctions
Impurity caused by touch
Can be.
Everyone together
We'll speak out the Veda of Mother's name.
We're all children of one Mother-we feel it;
We'll break down walls, forget our collective injuries.
No one will be wretched, none poor; all the same-
We'll all be great India,
The Vrindavan of eternal love.
(McDermott, 151)
Goddess as righter of wrongs
Wherever are the lowly, the suffering, and the poor
There I've seen my Mother-
Though beggars' clothes she wore.
I search for Ma in heaven, taking egotism's flare,
But she comes on dusty paths
While I'm engaged in showy prayer.
Wandering wandering,
Far high up in the sky,
I return to bow my head
To one of Ma's afflicted sons,
Her 0pen lap his bed.
I can't climb down to meet them,
Those lowest of the low,
For whom my Mother of the World
Has let all riches go.
They're hidden in a hell
Of ignominy
Where your blessed feet alone
Willingly can be.
Take me to them, Ma: come take me to them, Ma!
When I bring all people
To your heaven of delight,
Then I'll see all darkness pierced
By your resplendent light.
(McDermott, 145)
