Mother-Warrior

You are brave, you are Brave

…

You have conquered

…

You have taken in hand

those forces of disintegration

that threatened your existence

You hold them in your hands

your strong hands

they writhe but you hold them fast.

…

Your strength is a-mazing

your courage awesome.

…

Your wild hair flies in the wind.

Your wild eyes flame

– your mouth too.

…

Your sun-kissed naked body

stands firm on the high boulder

if it falls, it flies

if pierced through, it heals.

…

Oh Guerillere

Guerillere – female warrior

…

Your existence

overpowers the death beat

of the nation.

…

Your number is growing.

…

We will take them by storm

we will devour them

transform them in our powerful bodies

excrete them.

With this compost we will cultivate

we will nurture new life.

…

We will do as we have always done.

For a long time now the dynamo has been kept in a sound-proof room under lock and key.

But the dynamo has been seized by those who own it.

Its sound can be heard now

– it is not the loud discordancy of the pnuematic drill.

It is the smooth whirring – of wings beating, of hearts humming.

Its power produces

regenerates.

…

As we have always done, we will do –

Mother-warriors that we are.

…oOo…

© Glenys Livingstone 1980, with additions 2006.

…oOo…

with acknowledgment for imagery to:

Monique Wittig, Les Guerilleres. NY: Avon Books, 1973.

Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, Lady of the Beasts. NY: Random House, 1976.

Charlene Spretnak, The Politics of Women’s Spirituality, NY:Doubleday,1982, p.87.

Published in MODERN WITCH Lughnasad 2008, p.8. and also at Return to Mago, February 20th 2013.