(Poem) What Queenie says about Mahādevī by Susan Hawthorne, Ph.D.

“The cover image is a collage of photos I took during the year I wrote my book. They are from India apart from the photos with road signs.”

Mahadevi elephant mother smelt

another being on earth

she said to her friends

it’s time for us to walk the world

and so they set off with Mahadevi

in the lead they walked across

the African veld

they walked

across the seas to the hot lands

they spread out all across

the tundras in the north

crossed land bridges and

waterways an isthmus or two

snow-capped mountains

some of the time they carried

thick fur on their backs which they

shed in the desert lands

eons went by as they walked

seven times around die Welt

and one day Mahadevi said

it’s here where we started

now I know the common smell

those small four-limbed creatures

whom we’ve passed in the latest

circumambulation the hairless ones

there is something about them

that worries me

as she said this

a group of these small four-limbed creatures

climbed over the hill and stared

mothers daughters aunties

formed a circle around

the calves and sent

out a low call to others that rumbled

seven times around the world

Mahādevī: Sanskrit, great goddess

Die Welt: German: the world

Notes

This poem is from my book Cow which is a kind of meditation on the female as default. The cow is one of just a few creatures for which the female is generalised. Children learn the word cow before the word bull; a paddock filled with bovines is usually referred to as cows even though other words exist. The cow also refers to the female of the elephant, dugong and whale.

There are a host of mythologies about cows in many different regions of the earth. And while I have severe misgivings about the presence of cows in Australia and especially the way in which industrialised meat and milk farming is carried out, it is helpful to look at the mythologies and the critical role played by the cow.  Mahādevī is the great goddess, the progenitor, the wish-fulfilling cow, the one who gives milk and dung.

This poem is also a mediation on climate change and the destruction that humans have and are creating. The elephant mother senses this future a walks around the world to spread the message.

The cover image is a collage of photos I took during the year I wrote my book. They are from India apart from the photos with road signs.


(Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne


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