pdf download - Westerly Magazine

JAN KEMPGoddessesfor Cathy CookNow that we live alone, we women who dothere is much we have time forwhereas he and hisfilled the interstices of our days.Our minds were the gaps we came toin his absences and wondered at, likepatternings of leaves on a tea-cup's sideor consulted in almanacs or werewhat we thought we saw, way up therebetween the tree's foliage and the skyfrom where we lay below, just woken on a rugin brief moments, active, alone, alive.Now he is lost, dead, gone mad or dailydeliberately forgotten, because past had andimpossible to have, we must re-make our livesand find new goddesses to get throughthe day to day; a job, true friends,little things to look forward to andabove all search that lotusplosive in the mindwhose unfolding is in seekingand whose pond must be still as clarityand fearless for her to float likea Cleopatra down a sceptred Nilethe river of her thoughts and feelings,her rushes of memory, past her banks of pliable,dark arability, dressed in her own imagesfrom her own antique temples.These, you could say are the secretsof her millenia's entombment, as she surfacesnewly discovered, like a gold-lidded facewhose lapis eyes are seeing, can now be seen.WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 9