3 Kartik sonnets

Ananda Vrindavan

Kartik is a special month to sing about sweet baby Krishna. The following sonnets are based on the beautiful prayer Damodarastakam, sung daily during this month.

Obeisances to He who does control 

The life of every life that does exist

Yet each and every individual soul

Can make a choice on how to coexist

To see the form of Krishna with His flute

Or a little child running from a stick 

Or turn away from happiness and truth

And stare instead at maya’s glittering trick

The swinging earrings do not catch our eyes

Though they match the running steps of Gopal’s fear

We need to turn our head and with surprise

Lend our ears to hear what we must hear

     That Krishna, God, the source of all that be

     Is young and sweet and acts mischievously

Yasoda’s butter hangs from rafters high

Carefully churned with love and song for hours

Out of reach from monkeys hands and eyes

Yet a friend they have to reach with super power

Who climbs and holds on to those heavy pots

And shares the butter He finds stored up there

He is so busy with His generous lot

He doesn’t see His mother anywhere

But then He does, with whipping stick in hand

And jumps and flees and fearful He is now

To bind him to a mortar is her plan 

He really doesn’t want to get that vow

  And in this way the love between the two 

  Is churned like butter, sweet and pure and true

Who is this child that captures all the hearts

Of those who live in Vraja’s blessed land?

Whose winsome smile and cleverness to start

Pulls them like generous outstretched hands

Where is the Lord of Lords from Vaikuntha

With majesty and opulence so bright?

Instead we have the sweet Yasoda Ma

Catching her son running out of sight

The pools of ecstasy ever being filled

With daily childhood pastimes in this way

Drowning all of those who are so thrilled

With thoughts of Damodara through the day

   Let in this deeper understanding of the truth

   That pure love conquers He who plays the flute