Meditation on the Divine Blueness with Two Pop Songs
\nRishikesh, India<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just that in \u201cMy Sweet Lord\u201d George Harrison like the Maranatha choruses of my childhood I got the song\u2019s joke the first time, but here is just two syllables away from Hallelujah<\/em> and Jesus is just two notes away from Krishna are decked in saffron garlands, under a god\u2019s skin blue February sky. It\u2019s 1968 put the damn sitars away. Any minute now like some scruffy kids picked up at a beachside revival, squinting are suing George Harrison for royalties Jesus swears it was an accident; he didn\u2019t mean to copy, and bell bottoms with a guitar scripture song. I really wanna see you Lord, but it takes<\/em> as a joke: the magic\u2019s over. We missed the real thing. on the hill above the bakery, where the hostel when he swallowed the poison. There we lay down him posing on a lotus with His blue rolls of baby fat, so close, so fine you couldn\u2019t call them anything taped the Beatles to their ceilings, till the corners yellowed <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hannah Faith Notess<\/a> is managing editor of Seattle Pacific University’s Response<\/em><\/a> magazine and the editor of Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical<\/em>,<\/a> a collection of personal essays. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University, where she served as poetry editor for Indiana Review<\/em><\/a>. Her poems have appeared in Slate<\/a>, Rattle<\/a>, Crab Orchard Review, Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore, So To Speak, The Christian Century<\/a>, <\/em>and Floating Bridge Review,<\/a><\/em> among other journals. She lives in Seattle.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Meditation on the Divine Blueness with Two Pop Songs Rishikesh, India It\u2019s just that in \u201cMy Sweet Lord\u201d George Harrison sounds so Jesusy, with his platoon of earnest handclappers and strummers on backup, transparent like the Maranatha choruses of … Continue reading
\nsounds so Jesusy,<\/em> with his platoon of earnest handclappers
\nand strummers on backup, transparent<\/p>\n
\nslapped verse by verse onto the overhead projector.
\nAnd so I start to think it\u2019s really still 1968 here.<\/p>\n
\nI hear it for myself\u2014in the Rishikesh German Indian
\nChinese Israeli Continental Bakery\u2014Hare Krishna<\/em><\/p>\n
\nand \u201cMy Sweet Lord\u201d is not even two notes away
\nfrom \u201cHe\u2019s So Fine\u201d (doo lang doo lang doo lang)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbut in flesh-colored makeup, too shy to show us
\nhis true blue skin. It\u2019s 1968, and the Beatles<\/p>\n
\nposing in a row around the Maharishi,
\nthis gleaming green river behind them,<\/p>\n
\nand I\u2019m staring at the same green February water, wishing
\nthe Australians upstairs would just<\/p>\n
\nit\u2019ll be 1971, and George\u2019s new backup singers
\nwill get out their tambourines and start clapping<\/p>\n
\nat the transliterated mantras Rama Rama Hare Hare.<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s 1971 and\u2014really, I\u2019m not stoned\u2014the Chiffons<\/p>\n
\n(doo lang doo lang doo lang)<\/em> and incidentally, Krishna
\nis suing Jesus because he thought of incarnation first.<\/p>\n
\nbut the court doesn\u2019t care. And anyway, it\u2019s 1975 now and my dad,
\nlong-haired, is sitting cross legged in a work shirt<\/p>\n
\non somebody\u2019s living room floor in Virginia,
\nstrumming the same chords, a mimeographed<\/p>\n
\n so long my Lord.<\/em> It\u2019s 1975 and the Chiffons are recording
\nMy Sweet Lord (doo lang doo lang doo lang)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI know there are so many Indias, but this is one
\nof mine. It\u2019s 1975 and night is falling<\/p>\n
\nowner\u2014just a girl\u2014leads us into a room
\nthe color of Krishna, the color of Shiva\u2019s throat<\/p>\n
\nour bags. The posters on the wall\u2014a parade
\nof Krishnas, the fat baby stealing the milk,<\/p>\n
\nthen Radha and her blue boyfriend
\nwrapped in two versions of the same green sari<\/p>\n
\nbut Radhakrishna (doo lang doo lang doo lang)<\/em>
\ntaped to the ceiling, the way the world\u2019s teenage girls<\/p>\n
\nand peeled, till the magic faded. We\u2019ll sleep there, safe under
\nKrishna\u2019s gaze, so peaceful in God\u2019s blue belly.<\/p>\n