Wednesday 14 August 2019


Invocation To Girlhood

                        for my women friends

                        by Sigrid Bergie Feliciano


Let us be girls, very small;
a bit lost in a forest of bushes,
dazzled by sky
and butterfly wings muffling our faces.
On a park bench,
mild-looking boys are reading comic strips
and trading baseball cards.
They cannot see us moving in shade,
our laughter caught in careless singing of birds.
We are boisterous, secretive, and gentle
in a way females know.
We find strange happiness in dancing
the language of friendship.

Let us return to the little thicket
as women with smooth breasts
and hands weathered by much life.
Let us drift together in the late sunshine,
feeling not languorous or sentimental,
but breathing the womb love of our mothers.
We are earthy in afternoon light,
so let us risk enchantment
and be foolish in the forest’s heart.


* * * * *

Sigrid Bergie Feliciano is award-winning author of Turning Out The Lights (New Rivers Press). COMPAS poet in the schools for 20 years. International winner Naji Naaman Literary Prizes 2019. Her poems in journals, anthologies across the US and beyond. Caregiver for her beloved parents in their last years. Social activist. Globetrotter. Lives with ancient oak and pine, coyote and mule deer, and husband Tony in Shadow Hills, California.


3 comments:

  1. I'll be waiting there, still mild but trying to look dangerous!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Delightful poem... reflecting on the wisdom of women; mindful & playful, aware of the difference between boys' and our own nature, intuitive & loving, surrounded with light, indulging in all beauty of life, free to follow her fancy to just BE !! ~~ <3 MM

    ReplyDelete