A Woman Monk

Child Marriage

A soul bathed in innocence
Started to sense the world
When mother's lap tickled her
Guys assembled, ate together
Adorned in yellow ornaments
Amid beats of drums and songs
She was pulled out of dreams
At seven, she became a woman
Wife of a kid, as limpid as a mirror
That was the world to live
That was the world to feel
Knew not the knot she tied
Knew not the bond she found
At age nine, she lost her mate
Shrouded in white, she returned

Abuse
Parents took her in arms
To her old nest came the bird
Before it was her own home
Now it was like a refuge
A refuge to a far stranger
Her own blood rebuked her
Her own blood cursed her
The elders found out a way
She got a separate abode
A little home of her own
To live a solitary life
No play for her
No joys for her
That was the world to live
That was the world to feel
She was at a loss to know
She was too young to know
She was a tiny sapling
But was not tendered
And not cared to grow
As a wild weed she breathed
That was a fate she knew not
Why her own behaved that way
Still she moved on with life
Days passed, months passed
She ate a simple diet
She lived an insipid life
But her own hated her
Her own wished to wilt her
Crush her once and for all
How she usurped the house
And became a burden for life
Rivulets of the same source
Were they and she herself
But the worth of a house won
The burden was too tough to bear
Her own in the dark of a night
Pulled down the wall
As they pulled down the wall
She opened her eyes
They pulled down the wall
She screamed fearful
Her own after her life
Her own brothers
Bent on to suck her blood out

Revolt
At age nine, she grew instant
She was not a kid at age nine
Her sinews turned strong
Out of debris, she pulled herself out
She rose with power
She rose and rebelled
She ran out like a deer
She ran out of the house
She ran out of the hearts
She ran out of the village
Of her own
Who were now not her own
Like the fierce wind she blew
And out of the world
To the Koteshwar Temple she ran
To the saffron she ran
To the refuge she ran
To the Heavens she ran

Revelation

To a Sanyasin
Nothing was her own
Nothing was alien
She lived and breathed like the sky
When I met and saw her
Her wrinkles smiled
Smiled at the world
When our own turn rude and callous
The sky becomes our own
The earth becomes our own
The universe becomes our own
The Sanayasin is not a woman
She is the world
She is the universe
She forsook her own
Like a river she surged
Into the Ocean
And embraced
The whole world

© Harish Mamgain