Category: culture

It’s Time, Women

It’s time to resurrect
our confidence,
recapture the sensitivity
of intuitive knowing,
acknowledge the power
of our resiliency;
we are women
merciful companions
healers attending
Divinity’s passage,
peace-seekers
directing life’s journey.

Too long have we equated
self-esteem with
patriarchal agendas,
disappointed with
our inability to meet
media standards,
blamed ourselves
for divorce,
disease,
staying home
to raise the children.

It’s time to honour
our strength, restore
feminine worth,
align our resources,
we are iron grace,
mindful caregivers,
mate with intention,
our vulnerability,
our sensuality,
aspects of intrinsic
wisdom, we are
keepers of the dream
beings steeped
in mystery:
it is time.

(This poem originally appeared October, 2017.  Image from personal collection.)

Unexpected

Expectations safely stowed
pursed alongside judgment,
I am bent on finding an outlet
for already disgruntled disposition.

Encounter inexperience
fumbling responsibility –
an overwhelmed innocent
lacking in accountability

I offer a suggestion,
to roll up my sleeves
and before I know it
compassion’s employed

This was not my intention –
I am ill-equipped for such
a commitment, surely
I am of no practical use.

Yet, here I am, engaged
expectations tossed
in favour of service –
please don’t judge.

 

 

 

 

Manic Moments

…and some days
we stand up
topple the furnishings
of corporate order
decry politics
and etiquettes
and rage,
rage,
inner light
exploding
in a shattering
ball of fire
blinding
purifying
setting souls free
setting us free

…and then
it’s over –
in a blink
and our desk mate
still sleeps the slumber of automaton
clicks a mouse in rhythm with photocopier

we sigh
and re-conform.

 

 

 

 

Once a Mermaid

Impulse once drove my plunges –
glorious confidence propelling
fortuitous dives – unknown waters
an adventure to be conquered.

Even with onset of anxiety
I’d stalk shorelines, ignore
whispering of  catastrophe,
hold my breath and submerge.

Doubt would follow determination,
but buoyed by adversity, I’d swim,
force commanding adaptation –
I’d find my mermaid’s breath.

Motherhood introduced constraint
called forth sensibility and caution –
whimsy replacing practicality,
a shedding of iridescent tail.

I only dig in dirt now –
ground my offspring to earthly
forays, forbid capriciousness,
convince myself I’m solid.

Absentminded burrowing –
(corners of compulsion)
reveal abandoned passages –
old waterways exhumed.

Proclaimed pragmatism falters,
spontaneity takes hold, transforms
I am nymph again – free floating
Neptune’s daughter resuscitated.

(This poem, originally entitled Chasing Mermaids, first appeared in September, 2015.  It has been edited.  Image is my own.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Displaced in Patriarchy

Long since
dawn’s early
observation,
have witnessed
patriarchy’s
inequalities

first hand
second hand

lack a solution,
short of vengeance –
perpetrate rather
than end the cycle
of crime –

no place
to call home.

(Image from personal collection.)