To the Green Man, a book of poetry by Mark Jarman, is, as the Powell's description says, a book of poems that live in "the dangerous currents where poetry and religion meet." Kuan Yin, whose name means "One who hears the cries of the world," is the feminine aspect of the Buddha.
She is Isis, the Virgin Mary, the Magdalene and all the other goddesses who embody compassion.
Kuan Yin
The blanc de chine porcelain many-armed goddess offers us
Something held loosely in each of her many hands.
It may be a key or an axe, a tongue or a flower,
But whatever it is, it is ours for the taking. That’s clear.
She herself, so the story goes, gave up arms and eyes
To save the life of her father who hated her goodness.
And when he was saved he asked the name of the donor
(It was 7th century China, but donor’s the right word)
And learned from his doctors that his daughter had saved his life.
She had given her arms and eyes, and they ground them up
Into a paste which they fed to her ill, estranged father.
(How many fairy tales can you remember, fables and myths,
Involving the irony of eating your own flesh and blood?)
Restored he went to her, but it was too late for forgiveness.
And instead of an armless, eyeless stalk of pity,
He found the new goddess, a dazzling wheel in the air,
Her radiant spokes the thousand arms of compassion
And her eyes multiplied, too, like the eyes of heaven.
As she faced him for the last time, she was like a mandala
Where he glimpsed the inch of his life, her gift to him,
Just as she left him, just as she disappeared.
And now, here in a glass museum box,
Aesthetically lit to show she’s a work of art,
She lives in her glazed gestures beyond her sacrifice,
Beyond hatred, suffering, and goodness, beyond her story,
Although it’s the story that makes us understand.
Was that also the theme of Pan's Labyrinth? The blood of an innocent?
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