Artifact March 2010

I did not know here—

By: Dan Hettmannsperger III

(For Elizabeth G. Duncan)

I did not know her at first
as she was,
a sorceress of seed and soil,
divine daughter of Demeter,
a mystery whose majesty
moved with the determination
of tectonic plates unbound.

She was the divine mother
made manifest through the endless
networks
of optic fibre, labyrinths more complex
then DNA
which is the source of all life,
and she was the fountainhead of all
that walked and breathed.

I had imagined such a woman,
but within the velvet softness
of her voice
I perceived the light of an older Heaven
then those sought by lesser men,
with rays and heat to humble the firmament.
She was all this and more,
a woman to be sure,
but a woman with the stamina of Atlas.