Lady of the Beasts by Robin Morgan

Author:Robin Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504006460
Publisher: Open Road Media

VII

NORNS

THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS

This, the first veil, the scarlet

for my mother and all her sisters

who recognize the blood-rite, who know

which revelations could dismember

the mosaic of this world

but fear the cost, who love me

but go veiled.

To them I sacrifice the first.

See where it pulses, a forbidden standard

raised rebelliously above a conquered city.

This, the second veil, the violet,

for the king and all his brothers

who offer half their empires in return

for my possession, ignorant that I require

in its entirety what has always been my own.

To them I fling the second.

See where it flies, like royal spittle,

my laughter answering their lust.

This, the third veil, the cerulean,

for all the stillborn hopes arterial

along my limbs, blue as the veins of my children

never now to be conceived,

blue as the shadows of hunger moulding the faces

of those already living in hope of bread

outside the gates of every palace.

To these I entrust the third,

See where it ripples like a salty mist

over the sea’s grief.

This, the fourth veil, the emerald,

for the false prophet and all his prisoners

of envy, matricidal messiahs

who turn in disgust from the female,

rutting for death instead, for martyrdom

as hosted by their jealous god.

For them I discard the fourth.

See where it billows like indifferent grass,

an obstinate renewing above the grave.

This, the fifth veil, the saffron,

for the soldier and all his followers,

cowards who will slay me pretending they obey orders

other than their own, but desperate themselves

to cover my golden holy nakedness with their spiked shields

before such splendor dazzles, delivers, and unmans them.

To my assassins I bequeath the fifth.

See where it flickers to their feet and lies, their only spoil.

This, the sixth veil, the white,

for myself, intended for a crown

who chose instead this craft:

each leap a calculation practiced

to exact, as if by effortless abandon,

the transcendent selves of those who witness it,

like the lunar dancer drawing after her her tides.

Yet no audience, at the last, moves either of us:

ourself the purpose, price, and prize.

To me, the sixth, the silver veil, I dedicate.

See where it floats, my spirit

whirling with love about my flesh.

This, the seventh veil, transparent,

for the dance itself.

Unspeakable

as the letters of my stolen name,

without color, as the air glows, palpable.

Only this presence, like a length of space,

a skin sloughed, a rendered breath.

To the dance alone the seventh veil is cast.

See where it shimmers,

a membrane shuddering open—

spent, vacant now,

an afterbirth.

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