I Need To Feel You
Every Moment In My Heart

For Carol and Shree Maa

Forgive me if I tell you I am lost.
Even though you hollowed out the rock
and made a temple in my chest
my heart is still sometime a slaughter barn
where dogs fight over ribbons of blood.
Though I have heard angels singing clear syllables
that can change a stone into a man
and bring him crying to his knees
I am lost.

So many times I have been saved by Grace
heard the ringing of invisible bells
that covered the laughter of demons and drove them away.
I have killed demons by the thousands with a sword
and baptized this world in their blood
but I don't know for sure what my own name is.

Mother Mary smiles at me using the faces of grocery clerks.
The Mother and Father of the Universe tell me
I am their child.
But I am lost because I can't remember every moment
in whose arms I am held.

Two times I felt a presence behind me
and turned to see a god seven feet tall
whose open face was a shotgun blast to my heart.
But twenty-three years later I come to your door
like a boy with a fish hook caught in his hand.
I need your help to go deeper.

I have seen Jesus Christ in an oval of light
the color of lavender.
I have seen Lord Krishna dancing inside a conch shell
that was clear as ice
floating over the Gulf of Mexico
while seagulls mimicked his name
and mullet leapt out of waves trying to reach him
but I could not reach him.

Shree Maa told me
I am you. I am nothing.

Shivabalayogi said to me
I am who you are.
You can never forget your Self.

But every moment I don't remember
I am in love with you
is living in a bombed city.
There is an emptiness in rooms where you have lived and danced
then left behind
that hurts like a pulled tooth.
I need your help to go deeper.

I used to be afraid to give myself to you
knowing I would be eaten alive.
Now the sound of my bones snapping between your teeth
is salvation.

I want to walk in the perennial garden
and gather into my wide face the light of the sky
coming down at sunset to kiss me on the mouth
and leave my lips as red as a girl's.
I want to give back light to you like the moon.

My beard is white
my belly like a woman's three months pregnant
but in my heart I am a lover
I am a bridegroom with a handful of flowers.

But if the one I love is Shiva
then you be the groom and I will be three months pregnant
with your child.
Take these flowers from my hand and put them in my hair.

I am talking to the God who lives in the body
of Carol.
I am singing these words to my wife.


This prayer is one of a series written jointly to Shree Maa and my wife, Carol. Shree Maa is my Divine Mother. Twelve years ago Maa gave Carol and me the sadhana of worshipping God in each other. Thank you Maa for being in this world and thank you Swami Satyananda Saraswati for your example of devotion. I recomend anyone who reads this to visit their website. I love you Maa and Swamiji. —Charlie Hopkins

    Copyright © 1998 –2008 Charlie Hopkins