Puruṣa
Puruṣa, the giant of heads
and eyes and feet – thousands of them –
extends his body everywhere.
Where he rises he is the sky
and where he is low he is the earth,
and in between there is a space
for the spread of a thousand hands.
The gods made him a sacrifice
and he allowed himself to be,
to be an offering and a fuel
where the seasons could rise and cook.
The fat that was burned and drained off
became village, forest and bird
and every possible offering:
poetry and meters and chants,
the horse and the cow, goats and sheep.
From his jeweled mouth the priests were born
and from his arms the soldiers came
and from his legs the nameless rest.
Moon and sun came from mind and eye,
storm and fire emerged from his mouth
and the wind from his controlled breath.
He allowed this of his body,
that it should be the world, and that
the gods should set it in order.
This was the first ritual law:
that sacrifice is a spiral
that should be sacrificed to the
first sacrifice, to Puruṣa.
When the gods sit on the sacred
grass this is what they do, sprinkling
the one born at the beginning
with water flowing from himself.
Tim Miller’s latest book of poetry, Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, was just published by S4N Books. His poetry has appeared in Crannóg, Southword, The Brazen Head, Forgotten Ground Regained, and others across the US and UK. He is online at wordandsilence.com and can be heard on the poetry podcast Human Voices Wake Us.
