I Have Served

I have served.

Through heartbreak and homelessness

And breasts sharp with milk

As they call to a babe

That is not this one

I have served.

I have walked and wept with women

With gentle hands and truthful tongue.

Sometimes I wonder

Whether the right choice

Was to keep going.

And yet

I treasure this work that held me together

Like beads and string.

Women weaving

Women delving

Women dancing together

In sacred mystery.

- Jenny Wren

Apology Flowers

Gwydion,
Did nobody tell you
That owl is not a punishment?
Like all men who shout names as you leave them
The curses that rain down on women who go their own way
By men who forget
The ancient honour of the words
Created by our mothers
As they talked and sung and gathered
Those words twisted
And used against us.
Virgins belong to themselves
Birthing sacred life onto earth
Spinsters weave the fabric of creation
Like the grandmother spider
As they hold riches in their webs.
Whores are holy wombs
From which we are all born and to which you ache to return
In a woman's loving embrace
And owls are the wisdom of the night
The communion
With the wild feminine dark
That you crave and fear.

I like to think she laughs
Like all the women who escape
From the clutches of men.
She traded apology flowers
For
Wings.

- Jenny Wren

Artwork "Little Blodeuwedd" by Tammy Wampler

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The Empty Roar

As the water thundered

The sweat from her body

Was the rising scent

Of weather turning.

Her shadow was waiting for her

And the sprites that hid in dark caves

Traced her steps.

The birds swooped across

The water

Singing to their sister

An evening song;

"Now you are part of our land

How will you fly home?

Where have you come from

Inanna, Inanna,

Little Jenny Wren?

Your life is on fire

And your feathers are gone."

What is most lost and lonely

And precious

Is found here

In the empty roar.

- Jenny Wren