Dewi Danu is a Balinese goddess who lives on Mount Batur and controls the crops. She hangs outside my bedroom with her ‘sister’ and a red dragon. I like to think she brings luck.

Dewi Danu

Like a figurehead, but longer and not fixed
to any ship, she hangs outside my room,
out of her element, glides through
air not water in the lake that floods the tip
of Mount Batur which she commands
releasing tides to irrigate the crops,
protecting paddy fields where farmers stop
their tilling, to worship, raise their hands.
She weilds a knife, is stern. Her shape
is stark against the light to ward off menace
from outside, gobby boys in cars; a sense
that someone stalks the stairs, she takes
my sleeping fear, puts it to rest, not where
water pools, then sluices crops, but here.