Smoke, it is all smoke <br />in the throat of eternity. . . . <br />For centuries, the air was full of witches <br />Whistling up chimneys <br />on their spiky brooms <br />cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, <br />as they flew over rooftops <br />blessing & cursing their <br />kind. <br /> <br />We banished & burned them <br />making them smoke in the throat of god; <br />we declared ourselves <br />"enlightened." <br />"The dark age of horrors is past," <br />said my mother to me in 1952, <br />seven years after our people went up in smoke, <br />leaving a few teeth, a pile of bones. <br /> <br />The smoke curls and beckons. <br />It is blue & lavender <br />& green as the undersea world. <br />It will take us, too. <br /> <br />O let us not go sheepishly <br />clinging to our nakedness. <br />But let us go like witches sucked heavenward <br />by the Goddess' powerful breath <br />& whistling, whistling, whistling <br />on our beautiful brooms.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/smoke-2/
