ଶ୍ରୀମଚ୍ଛଙ୍କରାଚାର୍ଯଵିରଚିତଂ ଶାକମ୍ଭରୀ ପଞ୍ଚକମ୍

Five verses ascribed to Shankaracharya, and each is held together by a single sound rather than by an argument. The first begins every foot on shri — sister of Lakshmi's husband, giver of consciousness to those who have taken refuge, occupying half of Shrikantha's body, wearing a ruby earring bright against the ear, dwelling inside the Shrichakra, fond of the way the Upanishads end. The second moves to sha and stays there: peaceful, her face lovely as the autumn moon, fond of rice offered as food, protector of the world by means of herbs, hundred-eyed, her body radiant with green things, dark-limbed, queller of the pain of those who come for shelter. The device carries the whole piece, and the sense of it is the same story the aartis tell, that she fed a starving world out of her own body.