I Need To Feel You Every Moment In My Heart By CHARLIE HOPKINS

Jacques De Schryver

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

Text copyright 2000 Charlie Hopkins. Photograph copyright 2000 Jacques De Schryver. Charlie Hopkins is a wallpaper hanger and devotee of Sri Shivabalayogi Maharaj. He lives in Hood River, Oregon. All his poems and prayers are addressed to his wife, Carol, who is happy when other people read them too. Carol is a Vedic astrologer and counselor. You can email them here.   LINKS       SHIVA BALA YOGI Charlie Hopkins is a devotee of Shiva Bala Yogi. This website offers more information about him.     DEVI MANDIR Devi Mandir is the ashram of Shree Maa, to whom this poem is dedicated.

This page was published on May 18, 2000 and last revised on May 22, 2000.