A Poem for Enheduanna by Nan Lundeen

In beautiful synchronicity, I received an invitation to submit a poem to an anthology in the voice of a female-identified persona around the same time I first learned of Enheduanna. The first named author and poet was mentioned in my New Moon Womyn’s Circle. When I looked her up, I was flabbergasted. I am a poet, a feminist, and a long-time student of Women’s Spirituality, and yet the world’s first author—a high priestess who worshipped a female supreme deity, was unknown to me.

I learned that Enheduanna was a brilliant poet who wrote with majestic metaphors, who shared her emotions, and who grappled with concepts of the divine as a female supreme deity in and with nature, and with whom she experienced a personal relationship. She lived and wrote around 2300 B.C.E. Scholars say they do not have the specific dates of her birth and death, but they do know that she served as high priestess for 40 years at the city of Ur in what is now Iraq.

My imagination was sparked when I read that she may have taught others to write. I would create a hymn to Enheduanna in the voice of one of her female acolytes.

From the wealth of information on Enheduanna now available, I found the book, Inanna: Lady of the Largest Heart: Poems of the High Priestess Enheduanna, (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2001) by Betty De Shong Meador with a foreword by Judy Grahn. Meador’s take on Enheduanna’s poems resonates with me. She writes about the first author from the point of view of a feminist, an academic, and a Jungian analyst. She co-translated Enheduanna’s work from the cuneiform. Pictured above is an example of cuneiform.

Those of us who are writers sometimes find staring at the blinking cursor and filling the blank page arduous. Imagine writing on a Sumerian cuneiform tablet. You would have to press reeds in shapes of characters in an ancient, developing language into clay tablets. Using that process, Enheduanna wrote 42 temple hymns and three poems to Inanna, estimated to be in total about 4,500 lines.

In yet another beautiful example of synchronicity, the morning my poem about High Priestess Enheduanna was due to the anthology, I sat down to meditate as part of my routine and to draw a card from the Motherpeace Round Tarot deck, co-created by Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble. https://motherpeace.com/ I shuffled the 78 cards—and drew the High Priestess card.

Here is my poem written from the point of view of one of Enheduanna’s fictional acolytes:

Hymn to Enheduanna
(who lived and wrote around 2300 B.C.E.)

O, Enheduanna,
who wrote the first verse upon clay,
treasured teacher, keeper of the gate of heaven and earth,
high priestess, uniter of kingdoms, daughter of Sargon,
light of Inanna,

I, your acolyte, am deeply honored
to take up the reed and clay tablet
as you have taught me.

Receive my humble praise.

Your woolen cloak enfolds a creator whose power exceeds that of thrones.
Your words are songs more exquisite
than bright stars in black night,
more horrific
than a lapis lazuli eye upon a burning pyre,
your spirit as generous to your acolytes
who would learn at your knee
as the mighty Euphrates
whose waters abundantly bless Ur.

May mercies pour down upon you like rain.

Your teachings
are the water of life,
yet, speaker of truths,
the stench of fear
clings to your words.

Your hymns to Inanna
speak with the rage of a lioness,
the gentleness of a dove.

Like thunder,
your words awaken our ears
unto supreme mother, Inanna,
Goddess of the Morning and Evening Star,
Queen of Heaven and Earth.

High Priestess,
surely, you are her confidante.
We would be blind to her
but that you opened
the ancestors’ gates to her majesty,
she who sits at the nexus
of heaven and earth,
beloved of An, God of Heaven,
whom she surpasses.

She touches the sky,
and floods fall upon us,
she touches crops,
and our bellies are full,
she touches land,
and it swallows cities,
she touches rivers,
and mercy flows.

She casts change
about her shoulders like a cloak,
leaving all beings wary.
She rides seven great lions,
hurls stones that crumble mountains,
spawns whirlwinds that devour fertile fields.

She rides upon the dreams of women who know the power of desire.

You pull away her veil, reveal to us
her face that consoles with a smile
yet strikes terror with a frown.

Her hands that cast our fates
bring comfort and hope,
destruction and desolation.

She is with us in the wind, beasts howl with her seething,
moon casts no shadow she cannot penetrate. Mountains
bow to her, even as she is the mountain, she is the wind, she is the beast,
and she turns her face away from our raw grieving.

High Priestess, teacher, writer who claims her own name,
your courage speaks with a bold voice
to the very Spirit that imprisons us in skin..

Receive my humble praise.
I inscribe my name to this work.
The compiler of this tablet was Hulla.
O, Enheduanna,
forgive me,
I borrow your words:
something has been created that no one has created before.

BIO: Nan Lundeen’s books include Gaia’s Cry, The Pantyhose Declarations, Moo of Writing, and a memoir, Black Dirt Days. The last two were finalists in national indie publishing awards. Her poetry has appeared in The RavensPerch, Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Steam Ticket, Illuminations, Yemassee, The Petigru Review, inkpantry.com, her fiction in Evening Street Review, nonfiction in patheos.com, U.K.’s Writing Magazine, The Paddock Review, SC Writers’ Workshop’s The Quill, and numerous newspapers. The retired award-winning journalist holds an M.A. from Western Michigan University. Visit her at www.nanlundeen.com.