When as a small child, Lord Krishna
was accused of eating dirt, his mother insisted he open his mouth.
Looking inside expecting to see mud covering the tongue and teeth of
a little boy, she saw instead, the cosmic face of a god.
~ Hindu Myth
“Krishna’s eating dirt again, Mummy.”
Christine Irving, Ping Pong Poems
Mud dribbles from his baby lips
streaking towards his chin
like old man wrinkles.
Krish twists away, impatient to escape.
I squeeze his jaw until clenched teeth release.
The stubborn pretty mouth I love to kiss
opens wide. I peer inside and see
his mouth become a portal,
a doorway to creation.
Constellations form from chaos,
dance celestial rounds. They fade,
reshape and dance again,
while all around, in between
and through that cosmic firework display,
new avatars arise and melt away.
Awestruck I stare,
bemused, mystified,
but somehow not surprised.
I’ve always known divinity
resides within each child –
each individual life a universe
of burning stars and reeling galaxies,
impossible to fathom, rich, mysterious,
arcane, endlessly fascinating, curiously
accessible, infinitely out of reach.
I scoop the dirt from his mouth
mound it in my hand.
“Mud,” I think.
“Alpha, omega;
question and answer
melded in paradox.”