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The Message
The message of the men is linear.
Like rapid pines they swarm upwards
jostling for space
mutilating their roots in the race
sowing a shade so deep
within their conquered space
little else can grow
and GROWTH, they are shouting, GROWTH.
But the message of the woman is love
has always been love.
It is the luminous shining
under the substance
opaque stickiness of pain and grief
greyness of wanting, heaviness of getting.
The saints knew it also
the wiseman, the incarnations of GHod
Christ, Buddha
brought it as an astonishing revelation.
But we were born knowing it.
It is the circle of light we carry
at the centre of our bodies
knowing and forgetting
see with our eyes in visionary radiance
when we give birth
and lose and discover again
season after season
because we are orchard.
Jeni Couzyn
Snake in the Grass
Now that you've sloughed me off
so neatly,
flickering out of my life
in your smooth new skin,
eyes bright and forked tongue
a little moist in anticipation
do not look back.
I am still here in the dark,
hidden by last year's leaves,
brittle, paper thin and empty.
A few scales are missing
but I hold your shape forever.
Angela Kirby
TO CHRISTINE
I wish I could tell you
That you're not too fat
That you're fine the way that you are
That you're pretty enough
And you don't have to wear punishing heels
I wish I could make you believe
That you don't have to starve yourself
Or add to your chest
To fit this year's fashions.
And I wish I could tell you,
To love yourself as much as you love him.
You don't have to make yourself
Into his ideal
The real you is worth so much more.
But I am only one voice,
Against so many
The magazines with diets and makeovers
That you read
The fairy tale your mother read you,
Where the mermaid gave her voice
To be what the Prince wanted.
Oh, I wish I could make you listen
But I am only one voice
Drowned out by so many.
Susan Forde
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