The Virgo Diary
written by: Lopa Banerjee
@rooafza
In the month of Virgo, my endless sari
A work of Meenakari* and intricate epic tales
Walks the wet, fertile earth, pervaded by her cosmic spirit.
I am completely immersed in my hills and crests,
My red, sensual vines which I cling to,
Blood trickling down, cheek to neck, bust to thighs—
A full-grown tree, a journey from womb to womb,
As I dance the spirit-dance, my cosmic consciousness
Waxing and waning with the sun’s masculine rays.
I revel in my own sparkling redness, the red flowing
Like a ritual bathing of my moon flakes of self-love.
Dare speak about my blood-dyed hair, the contours of
A squashed fairy tale as you brush past my shores!
In my trails of the earth, there have been little acts galore–
Little acts of coyness and creation, sex and the buried roots
Of a woman’s innermost gnosis—moist, sweaty, gleaming.
A rustling of fleshy, succulent leaves, the milk and vagrant rain
Of centuries of pent-up torrent, howling, raging, as I dance
The spirit-dance, my eyes shut in my divine unrest.
In the month of Virgo, my femaleness aches,
I free it from my moist breasts, from my deliriously happy arms,
From my rivulets of tears. I let it roam, threadbare.
“Yatra naryetsu pujyante ramante tatra devata…”
They say: Gods rejoice within my pleats and folds,
I become the tender quiet of the beautifully stoic Yogini,**
I become the pomegranate blood-drops of my majestic Kundalini.***
Virgo is my second skin, the splinters and shards of the fetus
That bloomed into a babe, extracted from within me.
Virgo, my unborn progeny who would have reveled
In my crimson blood, flickering, blazing
In a world of Virgo folklores.
* Meenakari – intricate Asian/Indian design
** Yogini – the sacred feminine force/energy, Sanskrit term for a female master practitioner of Yoga (sometimes referred to as an incarnate of ‘Parvati’, the Goddess)
*** Kundalini – Latent female energy, the kundalini energy that resides in the esoteric body, a divine feminine force
'Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant's Wayward Journey', her memoir has received Honorable Mention at Los Angeles Book Festival 2017, and has also been First Place Category Winner at the Journey Awards 2014 hosted by Chanticleer Reviews and Media. Her recently released books, 'Let The Night Sing', a poetry collection and 'The Broken Home and Other Stories' have already received critical acclaim. She has received the International Reuel Award 2016 for her English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novella Nastanirhand she is also the recipient of the International Reuel Award for poetry 2017.
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