What, Together, We Are by Annelinde Metzner

It seems that the hearts of the whole world, and especially the hearts of women, are grieving now, as war and warmongering take over more and more of the Earth.  Patriarchy rages on, like a monster in its death throes, and we wonder, “will they take us all down with them?”  It is my hope that these poems will help us to keep on keeping on, keep on loving Her.

My grief, my love for the world                                        

I watch the dancer, one arm framing her face,
one hip drawing upward in the belly’s rhythm.
The dance of mature women, Raqs Sharqi
born of the sensuous music of the Middle East.
Her hips pull us into infinity,
an inward-outward shout of beauty and desire.

In Cameroon, babies learn music
while strapped to Mama’s back.
Coming of age, boys leap high,
beaming with the village’s newfound respect.

In Bali, the gamelan orchestra cues the dancer
with clangs and thumps,
the bodies telling stories of monsters and gods,
each movement of eyes, and fingers, and feet
a perfectly timed posture of sacred geometry.

Oh humans, oh, humans, can’t you love all this?
Can’t you love the way we’ve created the world,
each culture born of each unique place,
and each of us expressing in our own way?
Doesn’t this beauty tear at your heart,
that everywhere we draw up our Earth’s strength
through our feet, through our hands,
and we thank Her with leaps and turns,
ecstatic to be stretching our bounds?

Oh people of our Earth, can’t you love all this?
The exquisite mudras of Bharat Natyam,
nuances of the courtship of Radha and Krishna, her love?
The kibbutz youth, leaping to dumbek and flute,
‘til joy bursts like fireworks from the chest?

Oh humans, oh infinite diversity,
aren’t you breathtaken, aren’t you amazed?
don’t you treasure each other, for the vastness
of what, together, we are?

The Peace Choir              

Sing, O heavens, shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!    Isaiah 44:23

The women come to sing.
In the cold and icy dark, we gather
to rehearse the songs of peace..

“I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield…”

Putting aside aches and pains, and serious ills,
we come to sing with that wee bit of faith,
that last urge somewhere hidden deep in the heart.

“Oh, if I could ring like a bell…”

The great Black Dome, the great mountain
hears them coming, the mountain heart leaping.

“a song of peace, for their land, and for mine…”

until we arrive, there at Black Dome’s feet,
to open our mouths and hearts for Her love,
leaving our homes with all our annoyances,
to sing, to wail, to cry out
for the world we can see, within reach.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who publish peace.  Isaiah 52:7

The Story  

The daisies bid me tell their story
Clean as sun among mallow, at pond’s edge,
all beauty, Oshun’s delight.  
A thousand forget-me-nots glory in Her,
say “forget Her not,
  the Goddess of Beauty,
beauty of all things.”
And the impoverished exile, trudging roads,
counting children, hauling possessions,
no home but her own two feet:
Does she forget?
The bombing victim, glassy eyes staring from under beams:
 Does she forget?
Victim of annihilation, limbs fused at odd angles:
Does she forget?
The slow pleasure of the eye for blue-white flowers,
the sailing swallow, the hummer’s buzz,
Your worship, Lady Oshun, for whom all beauty is:
your worship is careful, time-consuming, slow.
You were born in a wide expanse of time, elegant jeweled Girl.
The exile by the roadside remembers
and weeps trails of tears for You.
In the minutes before death, the bombing victim remembers
and dreams long sweet-smelling dreams of You.
At her deathbed, the Hiroshima victim
rides a chariot bedecked with roses,
floating in Your muscled arms, Aphrodite-Oshun, 
to the blue-flowered lovers’ bower, from beyond memory.
And the daisies bid me tell their story,
powerful as they gleam by the hundreds,
basking in sun and bending in rain:
that in these green beings is far more power
 than any steel bomb in the sky;
that in the green gleam of everyday grass
the power of life begins and thrives
through millennia; through exile, torture, coup.
Though the government of countries change ten thousand times,
the forget-me-not still crowds her blue joy
into the puddled corners of Earth.
Time in plenitude to widely love Her,
deep and sweet as the tongues of lovers.
Forget-Her-Not,  green beings of Earth.
Love Her beauty.
Love Her.

Celebration of Death                      

Autumn in the Blue Ridge.
A golden glow emanates
as the leaves slowly release their chlorophyll,
revealing their true selves,
their true colors.
In the soft breeze,
on this ridge-top ruled by wind,
one leaf drops, then another,
carelessly, an afterthought,
absentminded.
But in the full-force wind, it’s a party!
It’s a riot of release,
a bright-colored snowfall,
each leaf shouting “Whee,
let’s become compost!”
In all this brilliance, lit by sun,
rose-red, pumpkin-orange, sun-yellow,
purple of asters,
brown stiff corn drying on the stalks,
my Mother, my Goddess instructs us-
“Look at Me!  Never forget,
my human sons and daughters,
I am the Queen of Death as much as Life!
Each end of life is mine, and each beginning,
the waxing and the waning,
the building up and then the letting go.
Regeneration is my watchword.
You will return!
I give you the beauty of Autumn,
to hold you,
to thrill you and warm you,
until you too pass like a bright leaf
on to the next thing.”

Annelinde Metzner
Black Mountain, North Carolina
10/27/2023

BIO: Annelinde Metzner honors the Divine Feminine with her poetry and music. She has composed many praise songs included in her songbook, “Lady of Ten Thousand Names,” and has created and produced concerts for the Goddess including most recently, “Feminine Faces of God.” She directs the choir at the UUCSV in Black Mountain, NC, and founded the women’s choirs Womansong and Sahara Peace Choir in Asheville NC.
http://annelindesworld.blogspot.com