How the Universe Doubled – November 2021

From Sacred Fire, 1998, by Nancy Wood

 

The doubling of the Universe took place when people

were sleeping, except for a few old women

who remembered how passion was created

to save the world from boredom. In dresses

made of spiderwebs, those old women

 

Sang a love song, heard from star to star and tree to tree,

even from fish to fish and blossom to bee.

Those who were in tune with one another

responded, and those who were not

slept their lives away. As the old women

 

Watched, the heat of love expanded, on and on, with colors

so bright they singed the edge of indifference

in one night. The Universe doubled

with the passion of those old women,

who believed the power of their feminine selves

would overcome

the doubtful hearts of men.

Woman-Heart Spirit – November 2019

From Dancing Moons, 1995, by Nancy Wood

 

The woman-heart spirit was released by the Creator

a long time ago in order to nurture children,

animals and plants, trees and rocks, and also

men, who resisted the softening of their wild nature.

 

The woman-heart spirit roamed the deserts and the mountains

looking for ways to create awareness,

the food the earth needed for survival,

and the recognition of beauty in the land.

 

The woman-heart spirit was wild, untamed

like the river and the wind

who taught her knowledge of a certain kind,

different from the knowledge of men or children.

 

The woman-heart spirit became the guardian

of language and music and the stories

needed by birds and animals and people, as

the world changed and imagination dried up.

 

The woman-heart spirit became the keeper of compassion,

strong yet invisible, the connection between

all living things. The woman-heart spirit

is nothing more than love, overlooked when the world began.

The Peculiar Grace of Men – August 2018

From Wild Love, 1996, by Nancy Wood (unpublished)

 

He never dances, except with me, in

a swirl of love and half-remembered music

that pours from his lips as he turns me

toward him like a bird. His is not a dancer’s body,

but that of a man accustomed to living life

in the raw. He is clumsy on his feet and cannot

keep rhythm to the simplest tune. The peculiar grace

of men in love saves them from awkwardness,

especially when women don’t notice

the way such creatures

trample on their feet.