Ishtar
In times when food came slowly
from the ground,
And blossom turned to fruit but once a year,
Our tools were made from stone
And hunting animal meant skill….
Life was indeed a precious thing.
Before our over counter medicine
to ease the fever in the skin
as sickness gets you like a throttling snake
and seizes every cell in you to kill…
Life was a precious thing.
When danger was a fickle flirt
and giving birth too often led to death;
The fertile mother and the newborn child
became the symbol of Eternity…
Life was a precious thing.
And over all the globe it was the same
No matter where you look,
Those terracotta goddesses appear,
and deities in stone
rise from the dusty long forgotten earth.
Ishtar… of Babylon and Dignity
A virile Goddess of autonomy
Of opulence and potency…
Has now been
superseded by a western dream.
She’s been replaced by a Semitic Mary
A Blue Maria from the shifting sands
And this chimera means…instead of being Queen
She is the servant of a Lord.
Kristine Byrne 2015