Old Moon, New Venus
YESTER DAY
He goes, the Lover,
whose face changes by the season.
He leaves the secret chamber in the hollow
of my belly.
Inside my womb, I've carried His image,
and vested my blood
in His refinement,
empowerment,
hooding of
knight, sage, priest, ...,
man.
(Maybe I have crowned a king or two,
in moments,
in my day.)
Now the sonar of my silence
in this empty chamber
finds soft walls and
echoes a gong's shadow sound
and in its wake
manna
a new music
and a voice...
my own.
Long as memory serves me,
I've bedded His image
Father
Husband
Lover
Boss, Professor, Doctor
Jahweh
in diffuse spongy passion,
summoning nearly all I had
for the purpose
(and I believed it not about me at all)
that he might one day express
that which I am,
so that I might see and know.
(It was my province to do so,
as queen,
during the maternal epoch.
Biology made me of Hera's clay, not Demeter's.)
And now, with passing regret,
I notice he cannot articulate
precisely or passionately or vigorously enough
to express me.
So I seed my own expression
in this dark sphere and agree
to form myself...
mouth, throat, eyes, limbs, breast and belly ...
from molten unspent passion
(there is so very much of it).
And I color the form ruddy, smooth,
supple to carresses and sensing of them,
radiant to match the wombsong.
I set a heart in the chest,
(asking it to be kind warm ardent strong)
and coursing fluids all about
(both nutritive and purging)
and make the bones tensile,
pregnant with marrow, and sturdy.
Current -- ahh, it comes from the Beyond.
I welcome it and take some care
with its modulation,
lest it overwhelm or shatter this dear matter,
or any other.
And I make vessels here and there,
clean and open,
permeable to what nourishes and enlivens,
and turning, self-purging, to discard the rest.
Last of all, I hum a blessing
in a language more ancient than words.
And, now, I wait and watch for
what becomes.
(A girl witnesses all this
witchery from a riverbank,
frightened she'll never know love again.
An Old One comes in the wind to comfort her.
"You will be pleased," the Old One says,
"with what the river brings.")
YESTER NIGHT
In the dark of the moon,
I know, with a start, that the blood
which dropped heavily from me when the moon was full,
which surprised me so for its form and substance,
was a stillbirth,
a leaving indeed,
of an unwelcome and half-formed intention,
planted too late, and in the wrong soil.
I write of this to my friend,
and while I write I find a lump under an arm.
They will want to take my breasts, the doctors will.
I'm sure of it.
Fear lurks demonic and avid over my shoulder,
ready to pounce and seize.
"No!" I say, "I will keep my breasts, and all my body."
I put on a clean white night gown, Egyptian cotton and soft.
I crawl under down and curl to touch as much of me to me as possible.
I love having a body,
this one.
DAWN
I awaken with beam from my belly
and a knowing
about passion,
how big it is,
how visceral and lusty,
how fiery too, like white star fire,
how rich in color and deep and wide in tone,
how infinitely resonant, and more...
how pervasive and how connective
between me and all else.
A stamen presents itself in a field of light
and a pistil.
Lovely they are, and partial
small, specific expressions--
piccolo and cello in a symphony,
blossom in a field laden with grain,
birdsong, squirrel and badger.
There is freedom in this seeing...
Law is dead.
I am not.
I am alive.
And shameless.
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