Padparadscha Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Simple pure girl of the forest people
Conceived in desire of the doe deer
Cast like a fawn dropped into the earth
Deserted and left for the wolves
And then become a source of life

Guarding the clearing and the vines
Singing of her longing for the hunter
The mountain god of sky and springs
Master of the clouds' pavilions
Of the torrents, rapids and cascades

Tempted first by the young warrior
Who shrank back into the woodland
At the challenge of the villagers
Leaving a gift of honey and mangoes
A bounty she fed to an old man in kindness

Who then demanded her innocence
But she drew back from the embrace and shame
Cursing that neither young or old would suit
To take the place of the source of mists
And the jeweled rainbow above the waterfall

But when an elephant broke from the jungle
The old man promised to save the girl Valli
If she agreed to submit and marry him
And she having no choice took the hermit sage
Finding him become her quickening dream

The young warrior Kandeyaka peacock-plumed
Spirit of the river Kataragama gem-studded
Losing herself to the run of the stream
Grasping the sapphire treasures of realization
Becoming the consort of the divine mountain

Tracing her arms deep, dabbling down her fingers
Embracing the ripples for lights and flecks
The multi-hued essence of awareness
The sacred pinks and reds and golds and amber
Of the common stone become padparadscha.