Wisdom Women
by
Old women, you were the lattice
for new growing vines, used to tell
how fire was kindled, blazed,
how the years turned and seasons
swelled with new growth.
Dark eyes nearly hidden
you kept the secrets. Waited.
Planned when to fish, plant,
harvest the tall grain. You
instructed girls in the mysteries
of blood and sex,
birth, children. You held the moon
on a silken thread, tugged it
around Earth so cycles interwove
with songs you sang by dark-night
while the moon slept, the sky lit
with thousands of stone fires.
You chanted our histories,
how we moved
across land and streambed to come here,
and when we moved from here, as spring
heated the land, this too would you braid
into the story, spinning it out
in thick plaits.
Now, old women don't tell us
what is carried in their wisdoms.
They live silent,
separate from the rest of us
and the long call of the owl is far.
I won't be online to post with the Poetry Wednesday Group I have enjoyed so much but wanted to post a poem when I was able to be here in case any regulars wander by checking on me. Click on the poets name to learn more about her.
What a great poem this is Mary Ellen. This old woman still tells what she knows, for what it is worth.
ReplyDeleteAnd Kitty I am very much more enriched because you not only tell - you write it for the rest of us to read here at MP!
ReplyDeleteI adored my grandparents, sat at their feet often so captivated by their stories of when they were young and raising a family during the Great Depression and WWII years. Youth who forgets its elders is missing out on a treasure trove of first hand history. Great poem!
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