the feminine bleeds
not always red, not always white
seldom enough
for words - she inters herself, crouched
chambered, begs for
cleansing, hand held cupped

round- her curves
familiar to self, unknowable;
unselfish giving - she bleeds, not enough
mutilated even by her own kindness, cradled
without righteousness, coddled by an unnamed
nebula .....she curses her own image, and likeness
slivers it, cuts it raw, for dead left - visible
a world denies
knowledge with sacred
alibi - scribed hieroglyphs, scrolled - she bleeds
white, and a

desert conceals her face
calculates her dance - her movements
mythical, she cries inside
out

tears of salt river-ed, rested
underground, a birthing place securing
her masculine seed coming to
light -  Madonna paints her
face black, "Oh Czestochowa, pray for us
Oh Mother - we beseech thee"....

She bleeds - red,  the
world turns with season - she re-seeds our flesh
feeds us with her *****, prior
to the sacrifice -"Witch, it is, Witch....burn it," conceal
in alabaster stones
lone, unmarked - her womb

tomb it only in site
of an unflinching god - hold him, birth him
in sorrow grieve and give him,  his blood shed
"take it ,drink it" - red,  she bleeds - seldom enough
as the masculine prepares for HIS resurrection
feminine for trial

He is reborn - she never dies
she is Wisdom (Sophia) eternal
He - Godhead
she - Feminine
denied....

Lithuania! My homeland! You are like vigour.
How invaluable you are, only he can figure,
Who has lost you. Today your beauty wholly I view
And seeing, describe it, because I long after you.

Holy ******, who guards Luminous Czestochowa
And shines in the Gate of Dawn! You, who watches over
Strongheld Novogrudok and its faithful populace!
As once you healed me, a child, so miraculous
(When into your care from my despondent mother bid
I lifted my already departed eyelid,
And soon could make my way on foot to your temple's door,
Having gone to offer thanks to God for a life restored),
So too you shall restore us to our homeland's womb.
Meanwhile, may you convey my soul from its longing's gloom
To those aforrested hills, those evergreen meadows,
Stretched wide across the space where the azure Neman flows;
To those vast fields, painted in varicoloured grain-dye,
A landscape gilded with wheat, silver-plated with rye,
Where the runch is amber, and the buckwheat white as snow,
Where like a maiden's blush the red clover overgrows,
And all's interwoven, as if by a ribbon, green
balk, within which a wild pear tree can sometimes be seen.

A Rosary from Jasna Gora

For, as always, Our Lady of Czestochowa
and for Kirk Briggs

A little string of wooden gift shop beads
Each bead a hymn along the pilgrimage
From Nazareth to Bethlehem to - to us
Praying again the Angel’s greeting-song

A hymn of the universe sung and told,
And written1 by Saint Luke upon a board
From the Table where all have come to share
Both feast and Feast, until the world shall end

O Lady of the Mountain Bright, please bless
Us through these humble wooden gift shop beads

1 *In Orthodoxy an ikon is said to be written