The Princess In The Moon

In Bali they say

A Princess lives on the Moon,

Spinning silver threads for a celestial sarong

As she gazes across the universe each night

One night in the distant archipelago long ago

She saw emerge from shadow, the demon Kala Rahu

Clambering the wall that guards

The Garden of the Gods,

Lumbering towards the well

To lap with thick lascivious lips

Amerta, the elixir of Eternal Life!

NO! Cries Princess Dewi Ratih

Her agonised wake-up warning arcing

Across the vastness of Vishnu

Who, roused, rose in one motion-blurred turn,

And saw and hurled his cakra,

A hurtling deadly discus that severed

Kalah Rahu at the neck, reducing the demon

In one blow to a bodiless head.

Furious and fearsome-fanged Kala’s dis-

Embodied head swore to wreak Rahu’s

Wrath on Ratih for sounding the alarm.

In an instant, he rose and sped across the sky

(do not ask me how a bodiless head

Transports itself so magically but)

Like a comet he did - racing to his prey

To catch her and devour her – but not that day

For the sun arose and cowardly kalarahu fled

Cursing; delayed but not defeated.

For when night returned and Dewi Ratih

Sat peacefully weaving her silvery thread once more,

Through the darkness came the Bodiless Head

Relentlessly coming closer, bent on destruction.

Opening wide his vast unfathomable jaws

Kala Rahu began to swallow the Moon,

Its silver light sliding into the deep

Round darkness of his throat.

But in Bali, in every village

From Amlapura to Ubud and Gilmanuk,

When people saw the moon between the lips

Of the ravenous Kala Rahu

They beat their drums and gonged their gongs.

Rattled gourds and struck their pans, 

Creating such a raucous cacophony

That cowardly Kala Rahu choked and coughed

Releasing the moon and Princess Ratih too,

Then slunk away. Delayed - but not defeated.

He lurks there still, to this very night

And when the stars align he tries again to catch her

But to this day the Balinese protect the Princess

Noisily driving back the monster to set Dewih Ratih free

So she can weave her threads of silver light once more -

Or so they say, in Bali.