Mother Wisdom Speaks

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Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain...

I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.
A passage.
People will find their way through you.
A bowl.
People will eat from you
and their hunger will not weaken them to death.
A cup to catch the sacred rain....

Light will flow in your hollowing.
You will be filled with light.
Your bones will shine.
The round open center of you will be radiant.
I will call you Brilliant One.
I will call you Daughter Who is Wide.
I will call you transformed.

From a poem by Christine Lore Webber, published in Woman Prayers, edited by Mary Ford-Grabowsky.

Comments

revhipchick said…
powerful, beautiful, wondrous. thank you for posting this amazing poem/prayer!
6/10/2009 11:23 AM
Bad Alice said…
Wow. That is just about the most beautiful thing I've read in years.
6/10/2009 12:10 PM
revkjarla said…
oh my.
What Bad Alice said.
Must get book.

p.s. I would wear my hair short if I had movie star cheekbones like you.
6/10/2009 12:33 PM
Lori said…
Ouch.

"Daughter who is wide"

This applies to other parts as well, I would have to guess.

Yes, this is powerful and beautiful and all that.

It just strikes me as profoundly unfair that we don't seem to have a choice about such things.
6/10/2009 6:10 PM
Jan said…
I love this and it's so new to me. A new poet, too. Thank you, MP.
6/10/2009 10:02 PM
Gannet Girl said…
This is so wonderful.

And thank you for the book reference - I'll try to find it at the library.
6/13/2009 2:36 PM
Ruth Hull Chatlien said…
Wow. I can't even put into words how this spoke to me.

And I love your blog header. What are those animals?
6/13/2009 10:57 PM
Diane M. Roth said…
oh, you brought back memories! I have read other things by her, but it's been several years.
6/14/2009 11:27 PM
Anonymous said…
The un-redacted poem is even more powerful, more difficult to hear, more deeply moving in the heart and in the spirit, even more beautiful.
5/15/2013 12:28 AM
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