The Great Goddess Poem by Padma Devkota

Human laws are ever changing as the human heart explores
newer values while some remain what they are for evermore
so that truth is hard to grasp and it is hard to be quite sure

I had come to show obeisance, to bend and bow upon the hill
where the greatest goddess had been implored by a mindful king
to guard the newly founded city from all evil, harmful things

April dallied in the mountains while May lingered in the fields
and the atmosphere was pristine all around this roadside hill
whence the temple of the goddess sought the bright world to fulfill

There she suffered swarthy rustics with sweating brows and sunburnt necks
with credenda-loaded, greasy-creasy, time-nibbled and wind-bit face
to feed her sweets and suffocate her with incense smoke that left its trace

Yet like all unchanging gods she with her laws forever true
sympathized with Bhaktapurites seeking blessings from her through rites
of spilling blood of lamb or ewe

Yes, they sought her kindest blessings by doing her a favour too
by bathing her in life-blood draining out of some poor lamb or ewe
as if this was what she wanted, as if they were sure they knew

When I found her on the mound with stone-feet bound to stone-paved ground,
finding my own faith quite feeble and my senses strong and sound
with all deference I simply spontaneously turned around

From a spot where all aesthetics sacrificed to stubborn faith
simply sought to propitiate with ugliness a goddess great
as if this was what she wanted, as if this was her willed fate

How the garbage, dog-shit, compost, reeking blood and rotting flesh
sent me scudding down the rock-rungs to the wheat-husk-fog now swirling
in the truck-smoke and the dust

Now I know how gods and men are one to the other forever lost
though they seek forever to be loved and cared for lest the dust
rise to claim what must have begun as the finest eternal dust.