In the Country of War
janine canan
Once the world was wild.
Mother drenched her darling boy in milk and honey.
He built the house, the road, the car -- and woman
made their home, their conversation during the long journey.
Now he, for millennia worshipped with flowers and fire,
must retreat in silence, smoke and shame.
He has slain the breathing trees, stolen the friendly land,
raped the knowing women.
He poisons rivers, seas and skies; the roaming animals,
the sensing plants, his own land, his own kin.
He gives his sons weapons and teaches them to kill.
He imagines he is bigger than God.
*
In the Country of War the sky is always black.
The President paints on more black.
A mother offers her babe to the violencevision.
A father gives his son a full set of killer toys.
Men construct machines that harm all life.
Schoolboys draw war missiles
(a nation of bombs has no money for books).
Girls, harrassed, go to empowerment class.
The citizens are building up!
The forests felled, waters fouled, air polluted --
the embryos retreat.
Breasts multiply in revolt!
*
The trees rustle, We are dying.
The mountains moan, Stripped, we have no snow.
And still, mad men strive for more!
On an arid mountain peak
the Ancients throw open their gate:
Younger brother has robbed the Mother --
She who is fertility
and intelligence,
whose blood is made of gold.
The world does not have to end,
but it will end,
unless he understands.
*
To exist, to understand, to be happy -- to feel loved
is all that humans want.
No one can be happy living in an Empire of Greed.
Insomnia, infertility, chronic pain, incessant weeping
and complaining, panic and heart-break
are signs of empire's fall.
Long black limousines arrive for the funeral.
To find Her, dig deep into Earth's memory.
Bathe Her, no bigger than your hand,
in your own tears.
Adorn Her -- the Enduring Woman --
with your white lily, pink lotus, scarlet rose.
*
In the room the women come and go
talking not of Michelangelo but of Brassempouy,
hers the first face lifted from mud! Of Grimaldi,
Dordogne, Laussel with crescent and belly,
of Willendorf, Dolni Vestonice, Los Angeles and Malta --
She of Africa, Asia, America, Europe, beyond the world and worlds.
In the room where fluorescent light bulbs squeal
the women come and go talking of Her of amber, bone and ivory,
Her to whom Enheduanna chanted thousands of years ago,
She who perched upon the caves hundreds of thousands of years,
whose body is the earth and sky, Creation's ever changing dream.
Oh Mother Dawning, the women cry, welcome, long-awaited Belonging.
*
Why choose death?
In this night with no moonlight,
flashlight or candle,
dive in the darkness inside Her.
She who is every memory and possibility,
who is every grace and loss --
do you understand? --
She who is You
will change your mind.
In the center of your Self is the Mother.
Where the Mother is, is your Self.
Call Her -- Mata, Tara, Mary -- and it's dawn!
*
One day man and woman will kiss,
phallus will bow and enter
the narrow moist passageway,
offering his inmost sweetness
upon her crimson altar.
Bounding forth from her hidden cave,
she will pull him into her pounding heart
that swells to Creation's brilliant rim
and spills into the stars.
From every egg the Goddess grows.
One day man will play his bass
and woman sing.
*
She is a snake, She is a bird.
She is the Earth opening her million petals.
She is the birth of conscious life.
She is the glacier that comes and goes,
the cycling essence, the tiniest seed.
She disappears in metal armor and arrogant power,
and reappears in golden life.
She is the kiss, the discovery, the difficulty
that leads you on, stretching out her arms of loving light.
Her heart is within you.
She is life. She is beyond life.
She alone is.
