Women

They are like rocks, amazons made of stone
crooked and bent in their coldness, their immutable solidity
nurturing the next generation with shrunken breasts
breasts strapped in plates of steel, harnessed to fight:
to defend by tactical assault and pre-emptive wile.

One behind the other in generational ranks they stand
bearing each other up – to suffer the same subservience -
and bearing each other down with the weights of collusion and revenge;
hearts shrivelled to tatters, tongues like silken knives,
Arms barren, bulging with sinew
And eyes that flow only with blood.

Once, the grandmother hunkered by the hearth, stirring the broth
crooning to the toddlers
weaving the cloth to wear, the song to sing
the lore of plant and earth her domain
the safety and skill of the young, the politicking of Man
hers to inform, to guide, to comfort.
Her old hands were knobbled
her mind seamed and seeded with the wisdom of her ancestors.
So what befell her and her telluric strengths?
That her power became warped and her heart learned doubt?
The warrior sons grew arrogant and stopped their ears,
their muscle and lust distaining the womanly arts for adrenalins allure.

So she, in bitter rage and helplessness, turned inward
Hid her rituals, her rites and knowings in the noxious guise of service
twisting those lofty commands of the soul, on behalf of sheer survival
so the poor heart shattered and the crab witch was born.

Young men walked past, ignorant of her terror, scorning her crumbled dignity
seeing only the fragility of her sex, her feeble violence;
while old men, after the scaffold and fire, assured themselves she was tamed.
But I see her still, alive, cogent in the DNA, loudly down the street
unmanly, behind the scenes
contorting the pliant youth with innuendo
overbearing sweet compassion with toxic misanthropy
becoming a breeder of sons to avenge her lost causes
and burying her daughters in dirt and shame.

What does it take to dismantle that lineage of devastation
the perennial investment in debasement and millennias of pain?
To undo the cycles of retaliation, of self-loathing, abuse and fear?
- But the merest sliver of, wisp of the breath of her primal mother
brought timeless, out of time
to hold and heal that broken heart
in a shattering bolt of agape love.