Imagine If You Will
Imagine, if you will, long-limbed
women with one bared breast
riding bare-backed wild horses
(yet not as wild as the women)
lusting for battle, riding the wind
taming the wind with the speed of
a raptor, loosing their arrows,
closing in for the kill.
Myrina, Mitylene, Antiope and Hippolyte
warrior queens worshipping Artemis;
huntress, goddess. Their veins
pounding excitement for close
combat and ritualizing girlrearing
to cultivate athletics, the hunt and
scorn of man, the effete sex. Rites
of death; only a man-killer became
a vessel of new life; a tradeoff
death earning life. Imagine, why
not? Remember, in every myth
resides reality. Troy was a fable
until Schliemann's dream of discovery.
Those fabulous females were the
scourge of their time, the wonder
of an age. Even in their killing
a terrible beauty; pinning a man's
feet to the soil with unerring arrows
his hand to his shield
so the Amazon could swoop down in
triumph, a beautiful avenger, to
sever his head and hold it aloft.
Peerless in beauty, innocent in
their savagery. True, no concrete
evidence exists, only tradition in oral
tales and the writings of Diodorus
and Quintus Smyranaeus. But look,
in future ages what will prove our
existence on the forlorn landscape
of a nuclear-blasted plane?
Remember; our time will also pass.
c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Mamashee, Summer Issue - 1979
No comments:
Post a Comment