Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

for Paula Gunn Allen

in the beginning, the word
allowed her a mystery

the wind entered
Gabriel blew his horn

the Goddess was still alive
a fugitive from fearful kings

but he was a fugitive too
born from this wedlock

II

he denied her when she called
she ever virgin & mother

?Äúa prophet is not without honor
except in his own country,

and among his own kin,
and in his own house?Äù

not to be pre-empted
he did not consort with her

III

who were these women
named Mary? (a coincidence

the one called whore:
the priestess, who followed him?

or the other, the mother
of James & Salome, of Joseph

she saw the moved stone
they saw the angel, a young man

IV

this was his story, imposed
on the geography of the times

they saw (a different world)
what they were looking for. messiahs

must have been all over, abundant
as poets in an energy crisis

women deities scorned, a world
full of egotistical & vengeful gods

V

his story is cradled in her silence
the nativity, the pieta

she is the before & after
he is always adored & in her arms

she, ever the seed, the fertile soil
& the grain ever ripe

with continuity. he, a hybrid
another crop planted to save the soil

VI

?Äúno one puts new wine into old wine skins?Äù
yes, he denied her?Äî

as he was denied by Simon called Peter
one name weaves through the gospel

like a trinity of the moon
reflecting. the Father, the Son?Ķ

but suggests the Holy Spirit a cipher
awaiting resurrection in a name of woman

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