Lead me to her altar
I have an assortment of deities,
a wide-hipped and pendulous breasted goddess,
made of clay, several slim ankled fiery maidens.
My Ladies like to laugh, heartily and
care not for censure or appropriateness, they assume your
veneration.
Approve of the panty bunting, draped across the altar.
Accepting smoke bundles, deathless offerings of plastic
flowers,
but chide me remove those papers thin, dried out husks,
previously incarnated as daffodils.
Communing each day, sacrificing
self-doubt, delighting as each crack lets more divine light
in.
Resonating bells heard through ear like abalone shells.
Not proposing forgiveness, but release,
Directing me to wholeness and embodiment,
laying my sins and trespasses against myself at her feet.
Through ceremony I am nourished,
leaving a bite of cake and mouthful of juice
so, none of the faithful will know hunger or thirst.
Oracles and journals guide me into deeper understanding.
SHE bids me use my auricles, if I have a mind to hear,
delighting as each old limiting skin is shed, and I
become transformed.
Prompt: “Junk Drawer Song,” and comes to us from the poet Hoa Nguyen.
First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be
a favorite song of yours, or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen
to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about
your notes making sense.
Next, rifle through the objects in your junk drawer – or
wherever you keep loose odds and ends that don’t have a place otherwise. (Mine
contains picture-hanging wire, stamps, rubber bands, and two unfinished wooden
spoons I started whittling four years ago after taking a spoon-making class).
On a separate page from your song-notes page, write about the objects in the
drawer, for as long as you care to.
Now, bring your two pages of notes together and write a poem
that weaves together your ideas and observations from both pages.
So my song was Take me to church by Hozier and it wasn't my junk drawer but what I had around and under my altar.
