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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>0006 Saraswati</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The name means<br>wisdom. Perhaps<br>we should leave it there. For<br>the human mind loves <br>to bring the heavenly<br>down to earth; then bury it: </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">maybe not wisdom, did they say –<br>who worships wisdom in these foolish days? <br>Maybe a goddess then? <br>We’ll name our greatest river<br>after her; that will help men<br>to remember wisdom<br>which flows from heaven<br>to the tops of the unreachable snowed<br>Himalayas, flows down and nourishes<br>the earth that nourishes the seeds<br>that yield the plants<br>that bring life to men<br>who meet together on her banks<br>and build a whole Harappan<br>civilisation – so, look –<br>she’s wisdom, and a goddess, and river bringing life itself<br>and so she’s in the heart<br>of every Indian.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">so far, so good; but then –<br>was it anger in the heavens, <br>that made the lovely goddess<br>lift her veil across her face? <br>conceal her wisdom? Was it<br>that men forgot to honour her? <br>Or was it some tectonic plate, slightly tipping, <br>that turned the fertile Sindh and Rajasthan<br>into deserts? And the river Saraswati<br>first became not a river, but<br>a line of pools, needing the yearly<br>tribute from the rains of mercy, <br>brought by men’s sacrifice? And then, <br>finally disappeared? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">and so the goddess of wisdom<br>who is eternal wisdom<br>and a river, is now<br>the goddess of the wisdom that’s<br>no longer seen so gracefully flowing there; invisible. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Maybe this purdah<br>is more dignified; we know she’s there, <br>if we honour her enough<br>and need her.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The story is not over, though: <br>the satellites have photographed<br>her ghost; a veiled figure seen<br>slipping out in the cool half-light of dawn, <br>waterpot on shoulder; she knows<br>that deep underground, her wise water<br>waits in stone caverns beneath the earth<br>these 3,500 years; to be drawn on<br>by wise engineers, to drink again<br>with awe, with gratitude, or thoughtless…</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=460372" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Wisdom waits, <br>living a life so deep in poetry, <br>in metaphor, <br>wisdom, goddess, water. How<br>she must love to live<br>lightly veiled in silken speech, <br>quietly in the heart, like<br>metaphor itself.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a></strong></div>