Blood

Blood.

It is life's poem, a force of nature.

As a child, I was fascinated by

The blueness of my veins,

The damaged flesh of a skinned knee,

The red, salty drops, bubbling from a torn nail.

As a woman, I feel it flowing with the cycles of the moon,

Aching with every heartbeat and moving deep within me.

My clothing has been stained with its crimson beauty,

My skin smeared with the mystic power of womanhood.

And yet

I witness this female cycle being condemned,

This gift of creation made dirty and ugly.

I see girls and women ashamed,

Hiding in the darkness as their life-giving blood

Darkens to black in the shadows.

We, who once bled freely into the ground,

Nurturing and baptizing the earth with our bloody tithes,

To assure the fertility of the land...

We, who spread our legs to welcome the seeds of life,

Sighing and calling out to the spirits seeking birth;

We, who open our yonis with the guttural sounds of creation

Still enter the sacred temple and push forth life, loud and strong,

Keening in the Red.

We are Life-Blood.

The Goddess bleeds.

If she chooses to create life

She must destroy that which she was.

In Blood.

The Goddess bleeds.

If she chooses not to create life

She must destroy that which she was.

In Blood.

And each time she bleeds,

If she welcomes the

Deep red and crimson tendrils

That hold within them the very

Spark of life itself,

She is reborn.

When the blood years end

She goes on.

She whispers her secrets

To her daughters,

And her granddaughters.

She is the End.

She is the Beginning.

Conceived in a red-washed temple

And eternally adorned in blood.