Kanya Kumari.
Strips of pale silken scarf
On the soft crimson light
Spreading from land to sea
After the blackness of night
Amid sighing moonstone of seeded saturn
A crow is crowing to break up the pattern.
Kanya Kumari high monarch’s maid
High colour in her cheeks of sunset
And a foamed white set in her face;
Her father departed for the Kailash parbat
To find the fair maiden a suitable match
And found Shiva there meditating
Which the heavens chose as her consort.
The gods became nervously worried
That in case the pretty maiden married
Who will kill Raku the demon?
With his jostling gestures at large
Sowing the dreaded terrors in all
Because the maiden full of beechen blooms
Could cast a spell of beauty over demon alone
And kill him without any weapons thrown.
The marriage was then fixed
For some hour of the midnight
And Shiva waited in his dark cavern
For the auspicious time to arrive.
But gods took shape of a cockerel
Which darted and crowed at midnight
With calls awash Shiva became agitated
And cursed himself for being overslept, vegetated
As the morning has come, he has betrayed the maiden
Sorrowful he left forever, under the clouds gloom laden.
Kanya Kumari waited for her consort
But alas the hour of midnight gone
In her despair she plucked some flowers
And threw it into the sea over the bowers.
Though the horizons are red
After the bloods of the midnight
The maiden still waits there, forever
Keeping vigils over every path in sight.
Kanya Kumari is the goddess of hope
Of drenched patterns, of agitated lore
In elevated hope that ever suspires
She waits forever amid despairs and mires
But glooms are hindered by her bright desires.
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