Abhishek as Man But Not a God

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

This young one stands not quite a Hindu god

With skin of heaven’s blue, perhaps the blue

Zeus’s heaven, ancient beauty flawed

With nothing, meaning something always true.

The blueness is so blue, so like divine

Of Alexander’s one blue iris which

Would rule the world, that blue becomes the sign

Of beauty everywhere that hearts must twitch

To worship, or to something like a prayer

Of azure reverence.  Holiness demands

(But lovingly) that worshipers must stare

At loveliness and follow its commands.

  He needs a temple several storeys high

    Since Greeks and Indians, and we, must sigh.

©  Phillip Whidden