Women's Stories

the ones we tell each other,

late at night or early in the morning

over coffee & a cigarette,

more than one if it's a story we've told

over and over like chain smoking, like

dirty laundry soaking in the tub, stains

evoking lost memories of teething, cut

lips, blood on the sweatshirt where

you held his head & he bled all over you

& you want to speak about this love

you have for other women who listen

intently, with their own pain showing

& many cigarettes to carry them

through the telling.

a compassionate voice or ear,

the closeness we feel yet cannot say

because we're afraid of a label

but what we really want, I want,

is someone fearless, a weaver of words

or truthteller, someone who's not afraid

of hurting while resetting a bone.

to talk about the helplessness of being

stuck in a house with a sick child,

the boredom that strikes,

the complaining we do, being called martyr

when all I really want is to tell someone

how unfair it is that I'm the only one

they call for in the middle of the night

& it's my ears hear them coughing

at 3 a.m. & I can't just lie there.

how to find out what our own needs are

& how to take care of ourselves,

not just wait for him to come home, take over,

pick up the toys and the pieces, mop up our spills,

how to find a quiet time, time alone,

time to think & write.

our need to be replenished with each other,

filling up our bowls with sugar & coffee

so we can tell our stories

not just talking over fences in the backyard

but actually getting out & seeing women

doing the same hard work,

no pay, no thanks, just their little faces

when one least expects it, smiling & asking

me to sing a song about I love you

 or making up a song about superman

all by himself in the living room.

he says, go away mom, don't talk (meaning

I have to do this alone, don't listen

cause it might not be perfect the first time).

I send you this in guise of a letter

because that's the way the words are falling out

of my fingers. in my mind I hear

the tapping on keys and it comforts me

at least I can listen to myself talk

without talking out loud (for that's

what crazy women do).

so I keep on writing & dreaming

trying to live truthfully

with my emotions, in my body

and I hope you do the same.

from Little Mother, Jennifer Boire

published 1997

Autumn Poem by John Keats, 1819

TO AUTUMN.

                                            1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Empowering the Feminine within: A woman who follows her own heart

SoulCollage(R) Card Shamanic Healer & Storyteller

“The things women are most yearning for---such as deeper connection, spiritual awakening, self-expression, creativity, right livelihood, creating an enlightened world for generations to come---all require a new level of Feminine Power to bring them forth.” Jean Houston

A woman who follows her own heart has learned to listen to her intuition.

A woman who follows her own heart listens to her body guidance.

A woman who follows her own heart shares deeply, listens deeply, is present with others.

A woman who follows her own heart feels her fear, acknowledges it, but is not held back by it.

A woman who follows her own heart is always expanding, growing, learning.

A woman who follows her own heart discovers her true desires and interests.

A woman who follows her own heart is impatient to get started.

A woman who follows her own heart believes in herself, and her creative powers.

A woman who follows her own heart is able to say no, and speak her truth.

A woman who follows her own heart knows the value of doing nothing, of rest and recuperation.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that to go down and in is preparation for coming out and up.

A woman who follows her own heart is a source of calm, a balm for others.

A woman who follows her own heart leans inward in times of trouble, but is not afraid to ask for help.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that angels and guides are watching over her.

A woman who follows her own heart knows her own value.

A woman who follows her own heart accepts herself as she is, flawed but fabulous.

A woman who follows her own heart lets her children be flawed and fabulous too.

A woman who follows her own heart stands her ground.

A woman who follows her own heart knows how to be grounded in root energy.

A woman who follows her own heart lets go to the flow of synchronicity.

A woman who follows her own heart trusts the Universe and knows she is loved.

A woman who follows her own heart has a constant companion and Friend within.

A woman who follows her own heart reaches out in compassion to those who suffer, she has been there too.

A woman who follows her own heart creates an atmosphere of love and caring around her.

A woman who follows her own heart remembers where her Joy is.

A woman who follows her own heart laughs from the belly.

A woman who follows her own heart loves her body and knows she is beautiful within and without.

A woman who follows her own heart forgives herself for her mistakes.

A woman who follows her own heart is in love with Beauty.

A woman who follows her own heart is in touch with her feminine power.

Any woman who follows her own heart can learn to be this woman.

Any woman who is aware of where she is and how she feels, and doesn’t try to pretend to be something different, can be this woman.

You are that woman with heart, unfolding, becoming, and realizing herself as the goal.

Heart is the Hearth and Home of you. Come home to your heart!

Suddenly in two worlds

 with apologies to Wallace Stevens

A woman is always suddenly in two worlds,
over the morning's breakfast plates
jammed up knives, amid soccer behind the hedge,
screaming, thuds, kicked leather.
The wind calls her to write: birds at the feeder
startle when the big black dog runs out
and her poems are suddenly startled, fleeing
before she can grab paper and pen.
The kids come in: one tries her flute, he opens
the side gate to greet the barking lab.

We are many worlds wrapped up in
this green space, the (good) Mom she tries to be
while the Poet skulks back into the slow cooker
left on simmer all day, closes the notepad
and pads in socking feet back
to the kitchen. 

Eve reimagines her beginning

“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over man: she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and became a transgressor.”  (I Tim 2:11-14) 

Naming Adam

“She desires herself alone, fulfills her desire

becomes pregnant from that desire.”

               Reinventing Eve, Kim Chernin

Some say she was pulled from his rib

golden in the leaves of paradise

or rose from the spermy sea on a shell

foam on the salt waves.

But the first woman entered like lightning

from the wet red cave

a sea of milk in her breasts

rich menstrual blood in her womb.

She took of her blood

mixed it with clay, then swallowed it,

dancing, churned the moonblood

in her belly to a child.

From the cleft of light, the sacred

opening, the first man was born.

She licked her blood from the clay-wet form

breathed life into his mouth.

He called her Eve, because she was the mother

of all living beings.

She named him Adam, for the red earth

from which he was made.

(published, Poetry Canada, 1990)