This next poem is a poem I had written some time last year after having some conversations with some Sikh women and some Sikh men about the issues they were having growing up with their Sikh identity and with their own appearance. Obviously growing up in a western society that was telling them what's attractive, what's beautiful, what they should eat, how they should dress, how they should look, and they were surrounded by images of clean shaven men with short cut hair and they were questioning their own identity. So this is a poem I wrote so that regardless of your appearance, I wanted Sikh men and women to feel beautiful within their own skin.
This is my poem "Fall In Love With A Lion"
I
dream of his free-flowing beard,
His magnificent mane, curled
and twisted along his beautiful strong jaw.
I want his heavy
hands, his paws, to bare weight on mine.
I’ll admire each
strand of his hair as it slips down his fierce back when he removes
his crown.
KING of the jungle.
I want the
sound of his thick steel kara clinging to make my hair rise.
His
simran beads on his left hand to jingle.
I want him to twist
his mucha when he thinks.
I don’t want him speak, I want him
to roar. Spilling REVOLUTIONS from his word.
A growl from his
throat that sends THUNDERS through my chest.
I want to be
taken into his pride. I will be his family.
We shall run wild
and free in the savanna. Hunt for our dreams together. We shall
change the world.
I will accept his weaknesses,
his war wounds, his scars, I will help make him stronger.
I
will see his soft SOUL hidden under that velvet skin.
Whenever
he feels caged,
I’ll free him.
Whenever he feels
raged,
I’ll tame him.
In Sanskrit he will
be my Simha.
For our cubs he’d be their Simba.
Do not
doubt me, do not have me mistaken.
I shall not be his lamb.
I
will be his SHERNI. His resident Queen.
My Lion. My Sher. My
Singh.
Why would you doubt yourself when you have STRENGTH and
power written in your name?
Why would you not find yourself
beautiful? Breath taking.
So I wonder… Why would a Sherni
want to be with a lamb when she should find her equal..
She
could fall in love with a Lion.
Jaspreet Kaur