This is a poem I wrote over seventeen years ago.
Awaiting Form
©January 12, 1998
By Vijaya Sundaram
I await form.
Meanwhile, I am a would-be nude,
Reclining in sensual abandon.
Your touch thrills me,
But you are no Pygmalion,
And I know I am Galatea.
So, I will stubbornly
Resist you, resist all
Other eager, trembling hands,
I will resist you with my
Pliant strength, with sensual stubbornness,
As I await my creation.
I am not a hollow creature,
Nor a stuffed creature,
Nor a creature filled with straw.
Mr. Eliot speaks for himself.
No! I am here, I am —
Contradictory, stubborn, resistant,
Beautiful, magic …
Ensconced in clay, in marble, in stone.
I hide under it all,
Waiting.
Pray if you will, say what you will,
I will not emerge for you.
You, who touch me again and again,
You won’t find me …
I will send forth for you a mere imitation
Of myself, for I know how to draw
The deep night of my disguise
All around me —
A blanket of blankness,
A cloak of clay.
What do I care if you relegate me to
Shapelessness, today or tomorrow?
I will come forth when I choose,
When the artist
Whose fingers tremble with unborn love
Reaches for me.
And I will emerge, whole and clean,
From this clay, my mother.