A Time to Dance(30)

            Paati drops a coin into his palms.

            “God bless you,” he says to her.

            Then he turns to me. “And you, too,

            so you aren’t a cripple in your next life.”


Outside the temple wall,

            Paati takes off her slippers.

            I don’t.

            I’m not sure I want to limp in.

            “Angry with God?” Paati says.

            “Why shouldn’t I be, Paati?

            Why did He take away my leg?

            Why did He make that man so poor?

            Is God punishing us for sins we committed

            and bad Karma we built up in a past life?”

            “I don’t believe in a punishing God,” Paati says.

            “I believe in a compassionate God.

            To me, Karma isn’t about divine reward or retribution.

            Karma is about making wise choices to create a better future.

            It’s taking responsibility for your actions.

            Karma helps me see every hurdle as a chance to grow

            into a stronger, kinder soul.

            When I was widowed, I was angry and scared

            but I used my anger to act braver than I felt.

            Everyone believed my act and soon I believed it, too.

            I truly became a brave and strong teacher.

            Maybe when you feel angry,

            you should try pretending you’re onstage,

            let anger fuel you into acting a part from a dance-story,

            a part that could help you.”


I leave my lonely slipper

            next to Paati’s pair

            and follow her.


Inside the temple, the scent of sacred camphor

            mixes with the acrid smell of bat droppings.

            My eyes flit to the dark corners of the cavernous ceiling,

            where bats hang upside down.

            There are no dancers

            on this temple’s walls.

            Here, even Shiva

            stands still.


Paati surrenders herself to prayer, neck bent, eyes closed.

            Sensing Paati’s conviction He exists,

            I feel some comfort.

            But I wish I could find a way

            to worship that would fulfill me,

            as Paati’s firm faith in prayer seems to fill and strengthen her.


For a moment, my childhood memory of the deity

            in the temple of the dancing God

            blazes so fiercely I feel the heat of the flames

            He holds in one of His four arms.


I miss

            the blissful ecstasy of the dancing Shiva

            I saw.

            Whose music I heard

            as a child.