Mother Ganga

There must be a million lines of verse written about the Ganges River... well here's my drop in the ocean.

Mother Ganga 5 a.m. and heaven and earth are one as the still night sky melts into Her inky black current. She is the Dance that flows from the one Mind of Creation and Destruction: all that comes and all that goes, all that is born and is thus reborn is carried from spring to ocean, from ocean to seamless cloud, from seamless cloud to the icy mountaintop. and so we gather like famished butterflies after lifetimes of metamorphoses; we beat our wings in grand displays of gratitude, for we have come to the nectar of life where all is given, and all is taken away. on Her banks we come robed in splendor and raising vessels overflowing with Life and Death we pray Her to bless our seed and bless our womb, to wash our sin and make us worthy to give, for so sweet is Her giving, and so just is Her taking away.

but here I stand at the fringe an unbeliever wishing to believe asserting the safe distance of analysis, when the Child draws near inquisitively: “Sir, how long is the Ganges? Do you know?” my left-brain clicks into action calculating kilometers, while his right senses the gap; and a smile of white pearls illuminates the answer to his question: “Why sir, it is endless.” the ice trickles from the mountaintop as the sun warms heaven and earth. and raising Her mist, cool and damp, She makes a ghost of the other side. the green and orange hues of land and sky are Hers; as Hers are the flight of birds the shimmer of stars the ripples of faith. a boat struggles against the current a lone oarsman pressing forward never turning back and as he dissolves into the mist I am reminded once more: the raft is not the shore. the raft is not the shore.

Paul