Oyá

 

 

Big black cloud brings no rain.

Twirling skirt of nine fabrics,

heavy and pregnant with spirits,

you are air flailing a whip.

Boiling heaven stoops to claim a piece of earth.

Beautiful, whirling, sword clenched in your hand.

The wind can pick up anything,

can sweep away us all.

 

Tornado woman towering and violent

whose feet breathe dead calm.

Your eyes glisten with lightning,

your arms gather steeples and treetops,

you drop here, lift there.

Howling is your song

and crashing storm your drum.

Your hair extends in all directions.

You delight to uproot all.

 

Your garden bristles with stone flowers

whose petals bear names and dates.

You stand at the gate, tall and haughty,

scattering seeds that once were us,

muttering memories of our lives.

Your delight is also the rooted flowers.

You know all the flowers.

You know us all.

 

You drop money in the lap of the beggar,

you whisk sadness from the orphan,

you throw evil into intolerable bright goodness,

you hurl money into the marketplace,

you blow and governments fly away like tumbleweeds,

you send our plans sailing and watch us chase them to where

you have left even better ones for us to find.

The gasp of our surprise echoes your blasts.

You spin and spin and yet you stand still,

you spin everything and all.

 

You are fierce, yet we know you love us.

The cut reveals the jewel's brilliance.

Sweet coconut milk flows after the chopping.

The universe erupts in chaos

yet we know the galaxies' arc is your smile.

When breezes slip their hands into our hair

and pat our head,

we know it is you. We can hear you chuckle.

Bring us change, but not too much;

we are fragile, we are tiny, bring us fortune in good measure.

Shelter us, your flower seeds, from harm

so that some day

we will bloom in your garden

and watch from its gates with you,

not spinning at last, not spinning but standing still and watching

the whole world and all.

 

 

© 2000 Gregor Everitt