Vesta
She, goddess of the hearth
needing no man.
Her rituals pre-date his;
the sacred fire is her generative power and wherewithal.
She is the great archetype and thoughtform
of aesthetic devotion to her cause:
beholden to no-one,
guardian of the core and root
of the creative feminine and fertility;
priestess of beauty and freedom.
It was the burgeoning patriarchy
that sought to define her by negation,
in revenge upon overbearing matriarchal Woman
- witch or seeress -
to confine her to denial
and interpret her gift as profane
only for their own lineal use.
Every time a child is conceived
she marks her mortal place and purpose,
by degree and domicile,
by context and relation:
to express or repress herself
as each occasion requires;
- an entire gamut of exposure,
both ghastly - by way of deprivation
and glorious in the purity of free
and ecstatic sex.
Aug