Enheduanna

Temple Hymn 26
The Zabalam Temple Of Inanna

O house   wrapped in beams of light
wearing shining stone jewels   wakening great awe

sanctuary of pure Inanna
    (where) divine powers the true me spread wide

    Zabalam
               shrine of the shining mountain
    shrine that welcomes the morning light
    she makes resound with desire

the Holy Woman grounds your hallowed chamber
    with desire

    your queen  Inanna of the sheepfold
    that singular woman
    the unique one

who speaks hateful words to the wicked
    who moves among the bright shining things
    who goes against rebel lands

and at twilight makes the firmament beautiful
    all on her own

    great daughter of Suen
    pure Inanna

O house of Zabalam
    has built this house on your radiant site
    and placed her seat upon your dais.

Enheduanna (2285-2250) was an Akkadian/Sumerian poet, high priestess of the main temple of Ur and daughter of Sargon the Great. She was also the first recorded author: not female author, the first recorded author in history. She created the genres, patterns and paradigms for poetry, psalms and prayers that have been used for millennia echoing through Homer, the Bible, church liturgies and hymns.

The photo is a detail of my work, Creator Spirit.

Caitriona O'Reilly

Clotho

after Camille Claudel
And in the end it was easiest to let go
of all that vigilance, the endless distaff-to-spindle rigour
of your compulsions, and allow the silks to snarl.
For a while, perhaps, you struggled to escape,
snared like an insect in your own allurements.
You had never believed that life was what happened to us.
Rather it was to strike sparks from stone repeatedly,
smoothing the planes with a morsel of bone
until your own eyes glittered in the veined torso. For here there is no place that does not see you . . .
You were a wilful girl, and wilful girls must learn
that to haul life from matter is a god’s concern.
And always there was something there you could not reach:
it flickered below the surface of the marble
like a candle behind a grimed window,
mocking your eager questions like an echo.

 from Geis (2015)

Donne

A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,

Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

         The sun is spent, and now his flasks

         Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

                The world's whole sap is sunk;

The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be

At the next world, that is, at the next spring;

         For I am every dead thing,

         In whom Love wrought new alchemy.

                For his art did express

A quintessence even from nothingness,

From dull privations, and lean emptiness;

He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,

Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;

         I, by Love's limbec, am the grave

         Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood

                Have we two wept, and so

Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two chaoses, when we did show

Care to aught else; and often absences

Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing the elixir grown;

         Were I a man, that I were one

         I needs must know; I should prefer,

                If I were any beast,

Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,

And love; all, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.

You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun

         At this time to the Goat is run

         To fetch new lust, and give it you,

                Enjoy your summer all;

Since she enjoys her long night's festival,

Let me prepare towards her, and let me call

This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this

Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

What else could I possibly post on this day? A favourite poem by a favourite poet.  And a piece that proved to me that I couldn't write an academic essay about poems or books that I really love.  If it speaks to my heart, I can't put it through the intellectual mincer that grinds and sucks the life out of beautiful writing.  

The photo was taken this evening on a walk through the gardens of Villa Celimontana, not far from where I live in Rome.

Rumi

Undressing

Learn the alchemy true human beings
know: the moment you accept what

troubles you've been given, the door
will open. Welcome difficulty

as a familiar comrade. Joke with
torment brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,

then are taken off.  That undressing,
and the naked body beneath, is

the sweetness that comes after grief.

translated by Coleman Barks 

Dorothea Grossman

It is not so much that I miss you

as the remembering

which I suppose is a form of missing

except more positive,

like the time of the blackout

when fear was my first response

followed by love of the dark.

Neruda