This is a poem that sort of wrote itself after doing some intuitive work with my shamanic therapist — years, years ago, during my more (ahem) sexually active era. It’s based on one of my “vision quests” and was published in an anthology called Which Lilith: Feminist Writers Recreate the World’s First Woman, so it can’t be all that bad. I share it here to illustrate the benefits of dancing with my demons. Lilith is an archetype that loomed large in my therapeutic work, and if you’re at all interested in why, you can read Frank Paynter’s old interview with me.
Surrounded by Satyrs, Lilith Takes a Stand
Suddenly, they are all around me,
their jagged tracks
pointing in all directions,
etched into the earth like runes,
battered circles, omens of confusion.
They speak without words–
a slow lidding of eyes,
curving of mouth, writhing of tongue.
Their dappled shadows prance
to an overture of leaves
a crescendo of sun.
My body begins to dance in answer,
smell their musk
taste their salty steam,
sense thier strokes of fine hairs,
course skin, and
yes..yes..
Until the cloud, the cold–
a cold of mind,
an absence of heart.
I force myself to speak,
and the words break the spell,
their magic stronger
than even that basest call.
“And then what, my friends,
what then, when it is over,
and the night wind finds our skin,
urging us to a place safe for dreaming?
What then, when morning steals our union,
and you scamper away,
hungry for the day’s diversions–
impromptu symphonies of senses?
And worse still,
what if you stay,
and I am caught in your silent
single-minded worship
of a world without words?
I have been here before, my frirends,
have reached into that dark fire
blazing so far from the hearth–
that ancient seething
that (even now)
I breathe from you,
feed from you
send to my nightly cauldron
to simmer and stir,
to ladle, at last,
into mounds of midnight words,
this witch’s brew.”
In the failing light,
the satyrs shift
and snort their disaffections;
their shadows sink into stones
to high for holding
I leave the stones to claim
their wordless dreams.