Cassandra, gifted with sight and foretelling, tell me: Does truth taste as sweet when you aren’t believed? Or does it taste like metal, heavy and abrasive to the tongue?

You rejected Apollo and he cursed you. I want to understand, what are my gifts if they aren’t received? Doesn’t foresight become a talisman within the system of same-old-shit-different-day? 

When an actual god can’t handle rejection without hurling curses, what hope is there for us women?

Great and noble Prophetess, what is the lesson of your story? 

..

You gently shake my snow globe mind, the truth softly settling. 

“Apollo declared that he fated me with unheeded prophecy. But my dear, he was simply taking credit for my gift.

He did nothing to change my fate; it was written in the stars. He was simply jealous, pompous and greedy. As so many of these earth-men are. 

Truth cannot be shackled. It is powerful enough to set Apollo’s temple ablaze. As ever, my name rings in your heart. It is no curse, it is a promise. My lesson, and yours, is to use your voice regardless.” 

I am the Nile

Rushing past

With deep fervor 

Cutting the land 

Longest River 

Clear eyes

The growing storm’s 

Greatest current 

My potency will nourish you 

The crops grow abundant 

Ushering teeming life

Sparkling gentle by the bank

But do remember 

The depths of me, the hidden 

My eyes calculate at the surface 

I destroy as I make new 

I will drown your deceit and cunning

Mortal plots no match for a Queen’s

River: a sapling loosely planted 

Merely a pebble tossed

Be warned, oh power hungry  

I’ll guide Moses to freedom  

But I won’t carry your plans

Your designs for Kingship anywhere 

First Woman

Ancient Mother

Lend me your eyes

To see knowledge as the way 

Past domestication cloaked as Paradise 

Like some elaborate movie set 

All facades and lighting and trick shots

Sit with me under the apple tree

Let me rest my head in your lap

While you tell me the truth

Of how you set yourself free 

Braid your wisdom into my hair

Crown me with flowers of gold

Place me in the moment 

When you became your own 

First Woman

Ancient Mother

Lend me your vision

Reassure me the Fall had merit

Our gifts are not godless 

There is higher purpose

To the violence they claim we deserve

In the cool shade here, you’re beaming

As you gaze down at me

Your eyes a constellation 

A celestial map to fold and keep

“We birthed the world of men;

we have the power to create anew.

Yes, I bit the apple of hope;

I’ve been waiting patiently for you.”

Stitch my soul to your discernment 

The boldness of your conviction 

The fearless pursuit of goodness and truth 

For whenever I need inspiration I can find it

But lose it once again to myself

Wield your sword to pry it loose, won’t you?

For your kind of strength saved a nation, a people, a generation 

Even now scholars seek to understand 

How you, an outcast, could be a vessel

A soldier for the divine and a muse 

For hundreds of years now

They wish you’d launch a defense of yourself

As all strong women must do 

When they are inspiration beyond their form

But instead you already fought the fight 

And now rest in the hearts of those 

Who must take up the cause 

Like me

Wearing armor that doesn’t fit 

Scraping metal against itself 

Trudging along toward the unknown

Mark me with your ashes across the forehead

Knight me with your wisdom 

Give me the vision to see you in front of me

To forget the concepts of time and space

For divine inspiration knows no bounds

Give me the vision to see you within me

To see that we are the same

Liberators of apathetic men

Who would seek our destruction

In lieu of their own enlightenment 

Allow me to not disappear into the ether

Unless in so doing I shall be a flash of light so brilliant

My daughter will revolt in my name 

How your hands must ache 

Weaving a story by day 

Undoing, undone by night 

Thousands of days spent 

Designing a shroud to cover 

Your broken-down heart

No chance to be soft

Or to linger in doorways 

Instead, pain your threshold

A teacher, a guide 

Toward inner beauty 

Spiraling upward to hope 

Waiting for a man is useless

Unless he is forever yours

Time a meaningless measure 

When he returns home

And strings the bow

A brilliant reunion 

Does he kiss your arthritic fingers?

Does he laugh at your cunning? 

Does he honor your faithful soul? 

What a way to tell the story of the seasons

A life half-lived, never mine

And it’s true, but only partly so

Fated to be kept and controlled

Queen of the Underworld

Or lovely maiden in the meadow

These categories are ill-fitting

Simple means to an end

No, I created the seasons of life

The turning of time marked

Through light, then darkness

Warmth, then bitter cold

My power is in a heart that holds duality

The dripping citrus trees and supple harvest

The falling leaves and quieting of snow

Wholeness from brokenness, and back again

There’s beauty in the dying and fallow

Meditation beyond golden light that warms

Deep sacred space unfolds before you

Unfolds beneath you, welcome it in

Shadow follows you by the sun

Shivers ever up your spine

Seeds disappear below the surface before their bloom

The underworld lives in you, too

Hades loved me because I softened him

Back to that deep inner knowing—

Even hell can be habitable

When you light the lantern to your pain

A half-lived life is not the answer

Eternal sunshine burns you out

Enter instead the swampy ether

Freedom is borne through descent

Dive deep into your own despair

Allow it to consume you

Breathe in the feeling, breathe out the healing

Then do it again for your enemy