By Zia Marshall
Her ethereal beauty,
glossy rivers of hair.
Pure jasmine blooms
nestle in dark braids.
Her kohl-rimmed eyes sparkle
with life that was never hers to keep.
She adorns her forest home
with her beauty, her grace.
Butter-yellow butterflies
settle over her dark hair.
Humming a soft song of love,
holding up the folds
of her cream-crimson sari,
as rainbow blooms willingly tumble
from lush canopies.
A mute tribute
for her husband, the sage.
Now frost-fingers of stone
sadly transform
her once graceful form.
A vibrant soul suspended
in eternal stillness.
Cursed by her beauty,
silenced into stone,
blamed for a sin
that was never her own.
Oh, Ahalya!
You bore the burden
of a god’s lust, his deceit,
and a husband’s proud wrath.
Your soft form banished into hardness.
Your pure voice hushed into silence.
Birds cast eerie circles,
in vain, they try to break
the spell of stony stillness.
Earth stood still;
time dripped
in slow motion
from the hourglass of life.
At last….
Grace arrived to end her stony penance,
in the form of a god of compassion.
His feet, her release
from her shingled prison,
Life surges through her,
shattering stone.
An unjust curse, undone!
She rose from the ashes of sin;
A shakti of grace, forgiveness.
Reclaiming
Her truth,
Her voice,
Her story.
The song of cicadas
echo in her forest home.
Pure jasmines bloom in the dark.