Poem: Purpose

When God took off

Her headdress

and pulled on a pair of pants

one omnipotent leg at a time—

Time forgot about us.

Left us in Adam's side,

fragments of a patriarchal world

My mother's father's father

and yours—

stripped of us of an ancient title

and replaced it with brassieres and corsets and stilettos.

Bodies once temples of creation

became vessels,

then receptacles

New words described our form and purpose—

and new occupations were created, too.

We were assigned the lesser qualities

to fit into softer, smaller minds.

No longer Divine.

Now just a companion, a good little helper.

And with no power at all,

responsible for the downfall

of all

mankind.

She was there—before He was

and knows exactly how it went down

in that garden,

and who tricked who.

What was done to Lilith was done worse to Eve.

Her daughters came to hate

their forms,

curved by nature with primordial purpose

blind to sacred beauty.

We sat to the side in petticoats

not making decisions—

But always watching and waiting, bartering

with the only currency ours

they could not take.

Queens or virgin-harlots, but always temptresses,

Forgotten as fast as youth fades

the wisdom of the crone long ago

graffitied over: truth is beauty,

and beauty is truth.

Then Science proved we have exactly the same number of bones.

So we went downtown and tattooed over the mark the Devil gave us,

and again learned to read and vote and took the pill and

burned bras with fervor, like witches aflame

Here is some stone

and bits of bone and clay,

Time to make something with these idle hands.

When I am done, I will prop this headdress

back upon my head.

I will build my own throne

then

make another one for you—

To stay reunited

as Equals

In the temple of Humanity.

--

We can all create living things. Women can create human life, and even if we do not become mothers ourselves, we all can find joy in purpose of the sacred beauty of curves. Natural order also exists within our human form and bodies: it is always seeking balance.