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
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
