You wear a symbol of your religion
And I wear one of mine

But what is yours?
A representation of the torture of your Saviour
Some saviour he was
He couldn’t even save himself.

And what is mine?
Mine is variform
The woman, the moon in all her phases:
Maiden, mother, crone;
Waxing, full, waning;
Gentle and innocent, beautiful and wise,
Severe and ancient, a luminescent She.

Or is it a five-pointed star
Whose meaning is so great, runs so deep
That each point represents something
Many things:
Earth, water, fire, air, spirit

The dark of night, the glint of a blade
The roar of a fire, or perhaps an ocean
The life that rises inside me as I sit
Patiently, for I need not wait
For some saviour to revisit the world
In the guise of a man.

My salvation, my life, my soul is all around me
All I need do is not kneel
Is not pray, is not confess through a grid
To a faceless, nameless monk
Not spell out empty sayings with beads
Or contemplate the haloed face of a woman
Whose head must always be covered
To show her modesty
Her purity
Her virginity.

My god can be a temptress, or a man in the midst
Of a waterfall of pleasure
A cascade of love
For in that there is no shame.

Or she can be a ******, giddy and naive,
Or the young boy who watches her closely,
Blushing when she passes
On the road
For in that there is no shame.

She can be a mother juggling children,
Or one of those children,
Or the light of a single candle flame
For in that there is no shame.

But what she cannot be
She cannot be repressed, or tamed, or halted
(though she can be gentle)
She cannot senselessly abandon those who need her
(though she can harm if she must)

She cannot stand by and do nothing
As innocents are pillaged
Nor can she throw a grubby blanket
Over the heartless slaughter of black and white lambs.

She cannot rip at the seams of despair
Tearing them further still
Proclaiming all the time that despair
Is the only way to the great virtues.
She cannot do that
She cannot be that.

She will not be the one who extinguishes the flame
For in that there is shame.
In that there is shame.