Remember that Autumn,
we drove up to Campbell River,
like teenagers, skipping out of class –
a cackle of women, spiritually forming?

Felt as if we had bided our time, willing
this union to occur – high on anticipation,
giddy that our routine femininity had
been strewn across the barricades
of our socially contrived existence.

We were like lesbian lovers, unafraid
to explore our crevices, our souls
hungering for release…

We were researchers, reinventing masks
adopted in formative years, stretching
our capacity to believe…

awakened by the crones amongst us,
sisters united, standing in the the flood
of our collective herstory, shedding
the padding of our religious upbringing,
teetering on the brink of a lost divinity.

Weavers, once paralyzed by the guck
of patriarchal dictates, fear of ascension
retreating, we broke free, immersed in
Goddess splendour, felt the ecstasy
of true abandonment, were wild women
unrestrained, catalysts for change.

How is it that the passion faded so abruptly –
that motherhood and responsibility, and
the rigours of competing in daily life stripped
away the afterglow, smacked me back into
this rigid self-definition, prayerful, thankful,
yet lacking the empowerment of the island?

Have I stored her somewhere; is there even
a space within me capable of housing such
expansiveness, open to wading once again
in the waters of a lunar deity, wiling to sacrifice
superficiality for the compassionate mystery
of the Black Madonna haunting my memory?

( Black Madonna first appeared here in November of 2016.  I resubmit her (slighting edited) in response to Willow Poetry’s image prompt (featured):  What Do You See?)