The animal spirit she possesses,
An agile anima stalking a dark spark within,
Looms as predator and protector.
This hunter-rogue guide
Glides through her Soulscape,
Revealed as moon illumined mountain forest,
A place of winter-refracted
Ethereality and lurking danger.
In this dusky, deceptive ambiance,
She has access to a primordial instinct –
Archetypal symbols, ancient signs –
At once savage and wise.
Finding herself in this
Wilderness of vulnerability,
She girds for battle.
Staring squarely into the dark,
Duplicitous and cruel face
Of her adversary, she prepares.
She finds the strength to see
What are lies and
What are the truths --
Both are found there
In that pitched, lacerated visage.
Like all warriors across
Time immemorial,
She embraces her pain,
Exercising control over it.
Absorbing the jagged,
Razor’d contours,
She sees
In its elements
The space where the
“Other” ends
And where she begins;
How she was made
A flint against which
He sharpened his cutlass
And where she
Has made of herself
The door through which he entered.
From this core radiance
Comes a rapier will to survive,
The strength to guard her kin,
The keen intelligence
To unleash her primal howl,
And the blood-fire to rule her demons.
Okami is the Japanese word for wolf. A photo representation that inspired this poem: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210179988232171&set=a.10208174166607884.1073741828.1113041505&type=3&theater
