Poetry – Feminism and Religion

Confessions: Lunch with Ann by Margot Van Sluytman

This is not Augustine’s confessions. This is not an essay on what love should mean. This is a poetic evocation of recognizing the beauty of friendship, the beauty of companionship. The blessing of breaking bread together and sharing in conversation that is the heart of who and how we are. Who and how we are forever becoming. Even when the Muse abandons us.
My dear friend, Ann, and I shared a wonderful lunch, talking, tears, supreme laughter, exquisite food. During that conversation, it became clear to me that the poetry of life is love that is situated where kindness and kinship and commitment highlight our meaning, our meaning for being and doing, which is intimately linked, for many of us, with our pens to the page. Fingers to the keyboard. Twinned and intertwined with lushness of choice.
A choice to have boundaries, whereby though the heart and the flesh can feel moved by what may present itself to be love, stepping back and feeling with the intellect of the heart and the intellect of the mind what is not being said, what is not being expressed warrants keen attention. A life-changing recognition of the possibility to wash away miasma and mist and pretence. And to stare directly into the depth and clarity that is: Wisdom. She Who Is. Sophia Speaking.

Lightbringer by Sara Wright

Author’s Note: I wrote these two poems back to back and didn’t realize until afterwards that they belong together.

Storm Sky Invasion

I stand
at the window
peering
through haze
gray on gray
or is it white
a tangle of
bare branches
obscure powdered
hemlocks
lining a frozen
brook
ki
winding
her way
under
ICE
to the sea
where marble eyed
Seal stands
watch
on a stone
centering a lake
whose boundaries
remain obscure
Guardian
of Flowing
Waters
freed from
constraints
freezing
just one
her sleek
coat
I stand
at the window
peering
through haze
gray on gray
or is it white
a tangle of
bare branches
obscure powdered
hemlocks
lining a frozen
brook
ki
winding
her way
under
ICE
to the sea
where marble eyed
Seal stands
watch
on a stone
centering a lake
whose boundaries
remain obscure
Guardian
of Flowing
Waters
freed from
constraints
freezing
just one
her sleek
coat
a dream
shining
through
descent
each step
takes
us
deeper.
I thought
I saw
a fish?
One silver dagger
Twins with
swords
puncture
frigid air
one falls
to ground
water
petrified
by an
unearthly
chill
ever darkening
skies
blur
the force
of an
oncoming
storm
ICE a
threat
black and
white
crocheted
extremes
hidden
behind
masks
of the dead

In these United States: A Gratitude Poem, after all, for 2025, by Marie Cartier

Oh yes, I’m grateful for the Portland frog—that blow up adult sized character with the pink scarf blowing back in the wind facing down a squad of ICE “officers.”

I’m so grateful for all the blow-up adult size characters who showed up at the largest protest for anything, single day protest in the U.S. to shout NO KINGS!! And more—the blow-up Tiger with the sign “Fascists get scratches!” My wife inside a blow-up bear, the California bear! With a sign that said, “Yes on 50!”

And so grateful we won: yes, on 50!

Grateful, grateful, for Indivisible! Spreading like Morning Glory. Glory! Glory! Across all 50 states and feeding people, feeding children, passing out whistles – alerting communities when ICE is nearby, stopping ICE in their tracks when they are places, especially in front of schools… I mean, why are they there? (As Gertude says, “There is no there there.”)

But this is a grateful poem. A rant.

I’m grateful for the blow-up unicorn with the sign, “Honk if you are not on the Epstein list.” Dancing on the curb with the rest of us. I’m grateful for all the cars honking as they went by us and all the food donated to give to people in need—some of those in hiding since last spring when this b.s. started – this f*** bullshit– but this is a grateful poem. A rant.

Fire and Ice – wintersolstice25 by Sara Wright

(written during and after the solstice passed)

I walked down
to rippling waters
listening….
Frozen mosses
trees and me
old snow
overflowing
anguish
gathered in a
Chalice of Light
my prayer
for us
my dog
and me
to flow under
fire and ice
or tolerate
soul murder
numbness,
soul murder
I cannot weep

A Prayer for Winter Solstice, by Molly M. Remer

A Prayer for Solstice
Winter’s Crone,
cave tender,
cauldron keeper,
mother of time,
guide us into stillness,
into a time of deep rest and reflection.
Unwind our knots
and soothe our scurrying,
remind us how to listen,
how to be still,
how to turn inward and know.
Remind us not to fear darkness
for it is a time of necessary patience and growth.
Help us to celebrate
the cycles of change
through which we move,
honoring the fallow times
and the flourishing times
as equally essential
for life.
Bone woman,
great mother of us all,
quiet our wondering
and our worries,
gentle our grief,
and soften our sorrow.
Restore our weary hearts
and renew our spirits
that we might turn
towards the light we carry within
and warm ourselves
by this,
life’s eternal and powerful flame,
knowing that we belong
to this great grand web of incarnation
and all it holds.

Ozymandias and Other Patriarchal Ego-isms by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822

There has been discussion of what to name Trump’s ever-expanding ballroom. Some have suggested naming it after Epstein. I would suggest naming it after Ozymandias from Shelley’s poem.

There is something about building projects that feed to the patriarchal ego. The Patriarchal ego stands on permanence, largess and if that involves crushing those “below” them, that is just how it is. Pre-patriarchal pagan systems focus on the cycles of life and are based on an understanding that impermanence is what life is all about. Life works on cyclic movement. The seasons, the moon, the sun, the stars, all is in motion and all presages different aspects of the wheel of life.

Caravanserai and Other Poems by Annelinde Metzner

This set of poems reflects on ways we humans have responded creatively, expansively and artistically to the challenges of our times. Of course, two of the poems center upon music, one of the strongest themes of my own life. The first and last poems are ways that the natural world is always knocking at the door, saying, “pay attention.”

Like this

“Like this,” says the titmouse,
hanging upside down to get at the suet.
“If you really want it, there it is.”
“Like this,” says the January sun,
one day icing us to our bones,
and today like Spring,
warm enough for rides
on little boys’ new scooters.
“Like this,” say the squirrels,
entranced with each other,
whirling ’round the branches,
twining fluffy tails,
intent on making new Squirrel babies.
“Like this,” says the chickadee,
landing near my toe,
tiny and brave, ready to eat,
scolding me to get out of the way.
“You are here to live,
so live.”

The Littlest Balsam by Sara Wright

Five years ago
I dug a seedling
in protest
ki’s deep green
needles
slender trunk
and roots
yielded
to sweet
spring earth
with prayers.

I believed.

One winter night
I will celebrate
your life
the lives of
thousands
with a
candlelit
spiral
of tiny white lights.

Tonight
white flames
adorn you
old longings
and heartbreak
we share the same
root
stilled by
simple beauty
a single
reflection
of Love.

The Perfection of Our Imperfection by Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks. Heyoka

Prufrock Again

In this our divine
Comedy of delight
Of destruction
Troubled waters
Calm. Quenching
Us yet again
For in
Our penchant
For beauty
We remake
Over and over again
The tale that tries to
Tame us. Gathering
In circles of hope
Once more we remember
How we remember

Holding Our Brokenness by Elizabeth Cunningham

Dear FAR readers, here is a selection from my new collection Holding Our Brokenness, a gathering of poems. I chose these particular poems for their connection to feminism and/or religion. I hope you will enjoy them.

The Old One Speaks

You must be unmade here
inside my grey cloak
inside my cold womb
here where the ice forms
and breaks
at the river’s edge.

What Kali Tells Me

It’s all in the rhythm.
Falseness throws you off beat.
Rhythm renews your strength
with every step. That’s how time
becomes timelessness.