Kršna {Black} / Kāli {Black One} - An Ode to Darkness

Darkness is the canvas of creation
Why vibration yields sound
How energy is set in motion
Where life breaks the ground

Night is when the moon
Makes her enchanting debut
Always departing too soon
Behind a veil of indigo-blue

Krishna, Gana-Shyama
Dark as the cosmos within
Kāli, Kālarātrisca
Divine through cremation

Dio Nero, Haashch’eezhini
Black God of Fire
Kartikeya, Son of Parvati
Born of the pyre

Blackness is prakriti
Nature unfolded
Strong like Nefertiti
Ever sacred, never eroded

With the passing of time,
Why do we fear what’s not light?
Is the sun so sublime,
That casted shadows don’t delight?

Blackness is eternal love
The all-encompassing one
Deep, yet rising above
Only stifled by a gun

But these tides will not lay low
In fact, they rise in the night
Shapeshifting, like the crow--
To make these wrongs, once again right

Original poem by Divya Balakrishnan
All Rights Reserved.

Every day I want to make positive choices about who I a

This is the third and final piece in this photo series about identity. The violence that Jacob Blake was subjected to comes from the evil disease of hatred that runs rampant in our world. My heart races and I feel a constant dull churn of nausea these days, and that is still pleasant in comparison to the anguish felt by those who have a target on their back. This poem was written out of a love for Blackness. Black women taught me how to love myself. Black love is an ideal of softness and strength. Black resilience is a blueprint for humanity. Black Lives Matter, Persevere, and Reign.