"until we open to the sun

like red tulips in a once-fallow field"

--read more in today's poem, "Resurrection" by Mary Saracino. 

RESURRECTION

by Mary Saracino

Deep in the coils of memory our DNA

sings ancient songs of life, death, regeneration.

We each turn on our own axis,

as the Earth turns through her seasons,

winter’s fallow followed by spring’s eternal greening.

All sacred litanies arise from her soil,

take to the sky, return their blessings

to the wells, the rivers, the oceans.

Why can’t we remember?

Our souls are hung on crosses,

our limbs bound, our hands and feet

nailed to unrelenting dogma,

our tender ribs pierced with thorny spears,

our vulva-wounds ooze with bloody amnesia.

We have forgotten where we come from:

the dank caves of consciousness

littered with the bones of

stone age lovers painted ochre-red

to honor menstrual blood, the original river,

to honor, too, its womb-source, our primal passageway

the portal from which we all emerged, mouths open, wailing

for our mother’s breast,

seeking the milk that sustains us.

Like spring we are born again and again;

we circumnavigate our lives, spiraling forward,

circling back, orbiting our hearts

until we open to the sun

like red tulips in a once-fallow field,

dancing in the breeze, loose with joy,

sharing our subterranean secret,

reviving the buried bulb’s dormant hopes,

reveling in our resurrection.

* * * * *

“Resurrection” was originally published in 2007 at http://www.newversenews.com/; it was reprinted in 2013 at https://magoism.net/2013/04/05/poem-resurrection-by-mary-saracino/

Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet, and memoir-writer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her most recent novel, Heretics: A Love Story, was published in 2014 by Pearlsong Press. She Is Everywhere! Volume 3, the anthology she co-edited with Mary Beth Moser, was awarded the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University, Palo Alto, CA. Mary’s novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Her short story, "Vicky's Secret" earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize. www.marysaracino.com