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    Tuesday, March 24, 2009

    Sekhmet, the Lion-headed Goddess of War; Margaret Atwood

    Perhaps my favorite poem of all time:

    He was the sort of man
    who wouldn't hurt a fly.
    Many flies are now alive
    while he is not.
    He was not my patron.
    He preferred full granaries, I battle.
    My roar meant slaughter.
    Yet here we are together
    in the same museum.
    That's not what I see, though, the fitful
    crowds of staring children
    learning the lesson of multi-
    cultural obliteration, sic transit
    and so on.

    I see the temple where I was born
    or built, where I held power.
    I see the desert beyond,
    where the hot conical tombs, that look
    from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
    hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
    and bones, the wooden boats
    in which the dead sail endlessly
    in no direction.

    What did you expect from gods
    with animal heads?
    Though come to think of it
    the ones made later, who were fully human
    were not such good news either.
    Favour me and give me riches,
    destroy my enemies.
    That seems to be the gist.
    Oh yes: And save me from death.
    In return we're given blood
    and bread, flowers and prayer,
    and lip service.

    Maybe there's something in all of this
    I missed. But if it's selfless
    love you're looking for,
    you've got the wrong goddess.
    I just sit where I'm put, composed
    of stone and wishful thinking:
    that the deity who kills for pleasure
    will also heal,
    that in the midst of your nightmare,
    the final one, a kind lion
    will come with bandages in her mouth
    and the soft body of a woman,
    and lick you clean of fever,
    and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
    and caress you into darkness and paradise.

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