Poem of the Day: Blue Madonna

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1 / 13 / 2015

Poem of the Day: Blue Madonna BY VANDANA KHANNA Back before color threaded the world, when everything was in black-and-white, I was the only pagan at school, hiding my breath with its curry and accent, mouthing words to prayers I didn't understand. I wondered why there were always holy men but so few holy women. I wanted to be enchanted, to steal the baby Jesus from the Christmas play and keep him hidden in my closet, pull him out when I needed to be saved. I wanted to be the blue Madonna holding all the pieces of her son together. Half a world away, girls my age came as close to God as anyone could be. They were already throwing their bodies over their husband's funeral pyres, flung out like blankets over the flames, chanting Ram, Ram like a nursery rhyme. My mother told me it was a holy mantra, the more I said it, the holier I would be, but I never really knew how or why, just that it was supposed to happen. Once I tried saying it as many times as I could in fifty seconds, but nothing. No miracle, no halo of thorns around my head. And all I could think about were those girls, widows at fifteen. What did burning flowers smell like? Something terrible, something holy? Vandana Khanna, "Blue Madonna" from Train to Agra. Copyright © 2001 by Vandana Khanna.  Reprinted by permission of Southern Illinois University Press. Source: Train to Agra (Southern Illinois University Press, 2001) VANDANA KHANNA Biography  More poems by this author