to Arunachala

everything
is not okay with me;
if it were,
I'd be dead and gone;
not here,
in these whorls of skin,
that speak to me
like church bells
ringing
with the ancient wind
from the stars
dying and being born,
writing that one line
inscribed across the blue,
showing me
what I need now,
what is what,
and who is who;
stripping me
of the loin of fear
that keeps lips quiet
when they ought to speak;

and so I speak
for myself,
for Life who wedded me
on one cold dark night,
when I lay ravaged
to my bones;
building my own temple
for the flame I must carry,
to that hill -
to Arunachala,
where even Ramana
stood his ground,
leaving his own mother
and his hearth,
for what he knew
was always home.