Goddess, I come to you <br />my neck wreathed with rosebuds, <br />my head filled with visions of infants, <br />my palms open to your silver nails, <br />my eyes open to your rays of illumination, <br />my vagina & my womb gaping <br />to be filled by your radiance. . . <br />O goddess, I would be a worthy vessel. <br /> <br />Impermanence- all is impermanence. <br />The cock rises to fall again; <br />the woman fills only to empty <br />in a convulsion that shakes the world; <br />the poet grows to become a voice <br />only to lose that voice when death takes her. <br />A stroke cancels her upon the page- <br />& yet I open her book & a chill wind blows from eternity. <br /> <br />Goddess, I come to you <br />wreathed in tears, in losses, in whistling winds. <br />I wrap the witch's herbs around my neck <br />to ward off the impermanence that is our common fate. <br />The herbs dry & crumble, <br />as my face grows the map of my anxieties, <br />& my daughter leaps up like a vine <br />twining around the trellis of impermanence. <br /> <br />O goddess, teach me to praise loss, <br />death & the passing of all things- for from this flux <br />I know your blessings flow.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-goddess-2/
