—From a collage by Marsha Connell
In front of the Wailing Wall, a flamingo stands.
A tree in the form of a woman
and a tender bud of a flower unfurls
its yellow petals in a slow combustion of light.
Migrating geese rise from a cemetery,
The glistening darkness of raven wings
is not squandered on the depths of the eye.
The vase postulates the concept
of swallowing the sun whole.
Tendrils seek the assurance of gravity,
mixed with the vagaries of the wind.
Marsha said: I cannot get any closer to the Western Wall
because the citadel is masculine energy.
No women are allowed to pray at the wall.
No wonder the woman who is a tree
combusts into a raging fire.
She is seeking God in a man’s religion.
It’s not a question of taking back the myth,
or anything for that matter.
Death of the spirit is coequal
to that of bones or feathers.
Still we follow migratory patterns
because this is what we know best.
Sculptural beginnings of blossoms cut from the soil,
transfer energy to the a vase, temporal, fleeting.
Last night, the apple tree fell over in the wind.
I saw the trunk as a hollow.
So much deadwood, cambian layers, a thin ray of green
hope among the rotted depths of that hollow trunk.
When where will Midnight, the cat take his daily nap now?
The apples to sour to eat. But we are talking of the world.
Why does God need a wall?
There are already too many walls between us,
between the sexes and God.
Even belief in God is suspect these days.
The rules are all wrong.
They said women have no souls,
that we were merely vessels to hold incarnate seed.
Our wombs, fruiting apples, even the dead know
of transmigration and of seasons. Their bones turning
like stones. They hiss as we approach the wall to pray.
Why must we always except belief in their terms?
Without death there would be no burial rights,
no religion, less separation of the sexes.
But the woman ignites, just the same.
Immolation is one of the four elements.
In the house alone, against the coming night.
Always we are seeking the light,
but our souls toss and turn
as this unbridled passion gathers us in.
Always we are seeking patterns
but the lichen knows only the completeness of stone
coming home. Turning it to dust.
Summer 1992
In front of the Wailing Wall, a flamingo stands.
A tree in the form of a woman
and a tender bud of a flower unfurls
its yellow petals in a slow combustion of light.
Migrating geese rise from a cemetery,
The glistening darkness of raven wings
is not squandered on the depths of the eye.
The vase postulates the concept
of swallowing the sun whole.
Tendrils seek the assurance of gravity,
mixed with the vagaries of the wind.
Marsha said: I cannot get any closer to the Western Wall
because the citadel is masculine energy.
No women are allowed to pray at the wall.
No wonder the woman who is a tree
combusts into a raging fire.
She is seeking God in a man’s religion.
It’s not a question of taking back the myth,
or anything for that matter.
Death of the spirit is coequal
to that of bones or feathers.
Still we follow migratory patterns
because this is what we know best.
Sculptural beginnings of blossoms cut from the soil,
transfer energy to the a vase, temporal, fleeting.
Last night, the apple tree fell over in the wind.
I saw the trunk as a hollow.
So much deadwood, cambian layers, a thin ray of green
hope among the rotted depths of that hollow trunk.
When where will Midnight, the cat take his daily nap now?
The apples to sour to eat. But we are talking of the world.
Why does God need a wall?
There are already too many walls between us,
between the sexes and God.
Even belief in God is suspect these days.
The rules are all wrong.
They said women have no souls,
that we were merely vessels to hold incarnate seed.
Our wombs, fruiting apples, even the dead know
of transmigration and of seasons. Their bones turning
like stones. They hiss as we approach the wall to pray.
Why must we always except belief in their terms?
Without death there would be no burial rights,
no religion, less separation of the sexes.
But the woman ignites, just the same.
Immolation is one of the four elements.
In the house alone, against the coming night.
Always we are seeking the light,
but our souls toss and turn
as this unbridled passion gathers us in.
Always we are seeking patterns
but the lichen knows only the completeness of stone
coming home. Turning it to dust.
Summer 1992
No comments:
Post a Comment