POETRY KITe ANTHOLOGY

Gold

The Bride stands at the latticed
window gazing out into the ineffable
dusk of her last maiden day,
the stepping silhouettes of the distant hills
shade on shade of tender dissolving blue,
the smoky rose and violet of sunset ashing
into the coming night.


A thread of incense smoke unwind
sits sweet sandalwood embroidery into the
warm air as she dreams,
her smooth young face hieratic and distant,
her eyes dark as holy pools,
her shining hair a tasselled braid
dropping to her knees uncut,
scented with jasmine and amber.

Tomorrow her almond-pale body
will be burnished, hennaed and
perfumed, then wrapped in her wedding sari,
the archaic weight of fabric more than simple cloth,
being freighted with symbolism
and heavy with women's magic.
The sari, a serpentine length
of pigeon's blood scarlet, brocaded, precious,
the core of its incantatory pattern a filament
of pure yellow gold, the metal drawn fine as gossamer,
woven into the very garment she will wear,
her future secured by its unchanging value
and as just as her mother did,
when the fine silk dulls and frays,
she will feed it to the fire which will
consume the silk leaving in the dross
the unchanging and eternal purity
of the sun's sister, Gold.

There in the hot cinders it will glitter,
the indissoluble reminder of herself,
the knowledge that whatever she appears,
however the World sees her
what she is in essence remains
unchanging, faithful, pure.

This is her talisman,
like the old spiral wedding pendant
even her grandmother has forgotten the age of,
that shows the turning path of her life
trace from birth to death and back again
and will see her daughter's journey
and will lie on the breast of her grandchild
when this same sun warms
her knotted hands and the veils
between life and death are worn transparent.

Her daughter, yet unborn,
will one day show her her dowry cloths,
just as she showed her own grandmother
the priceless saris, months in the making,
stamped and foiled in the same gold
that winds its threads through her wedding garment,
and watched the old woman sigh
and touch the bright designs gently, gently,
half-immersed in the past,
her heart a storehouse of mystery and wisdom,
understanding that like the fire that
burns the worn and discoloured silk
from the golden core,
pain tempers the spirit, and a woman,
like a spear-head or a good sword,
carries her strength in the beauty of not harming
where she might, in protecting that which needs her
and in turning the fierce edge of pride to creation,
not destruction.

The mother, having given birth,
also tends the dying;
Gold, blessing the Bride,
honours the Dead.

All that seems simple -
a shining yellow metal,
a young woman dreaming at dusk -
is complexity past imagination:
all that seems soft, weak, helpless -
a trembling Bride engulfed in her vestments,
a little ornament catching the light -
is enduring and unbowed beyond Time and Fortune.

Here is Gold. Here is The Bride.

Here is the mystic union.

Here is Gold.


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