Fatuma

I sit by my fire as the season turns,
Cold is on her way
Autumn's trees dripping leaves,
Peaceful letting go.
Natures hand guides
Invisible living, dancing spirals of yellow, red, orange and green from her great palette
Of Mysery.
Gently and effortlessly they fall to meet the eternal ground of being,
Settling into place on the great canvas of Her ever- changing art.
Cold asks me to reflect on all that is sacred
Which is sometimes forgotten in the dazed busyness of our short lives.
I am safe, warm, cozy by my fire.
Simplicity of cold, fire, earth, mist and cloud stirs my Elemental wisdom.

I sit quietly, summoning my Muse, asking for revelation.
Before me from depths of silky stillness ebony face of Fatuma arises-beautiful Rwandan woman I heard
Telling her story in a video some days past.
Fatuma-what words do I have for you, my sister?
Whirlwind feelings spin and churn in my heart, mind and soul.
But words? What words are there for such a woman?
I am cozy by my fire.
I wish she could share its warmth with me.
I would give her all the warmth in the world to erase her pain.

Fatuma's words bleed from her mouth
As her unbearable pain drips with each sound.
Her shiny black eyes pool with tears of immeasurable grief for her children
Taken into night to a place unknown to her,
Killed by the viciousness of men.
Not a dog, not a lion, but a pack of men.
Animals kill to eat.
For what do men kill innocent children? What is it in men to do such a thing? Such an unspeakable thing?
Killing the child they once were.

Hands to her throat, Fatuma tries to stop the rising suffocation as her grief crawls up through her body,
She cries for the souls of her babies.
But it doesn't end there.
The pain speaks.
More words bleeding.
Men's arms and dirty hands
Pulling, clawing,
Dragging her softness into beautiful field of green
Raping. Raping. And raping again.
Raping Fatuma. Raping their mothers, their sisters and daughters.
Raping verdant green lushness.
Leaning on guns,
They take turns
Watching reality tv.
But they were not finished.
Jagged scar on belly
Where knife tore into beautiful smooth flesh of Mother's rounded grace
Cut open in the field stained with their rape and her blood
Unborn child ripped from the safety of her mother's womb,
Same sacred womb from which the men came.

Fatuma lives.
Grace has saved her.
She cries it is still not done.
HIV is the final deliverance of this brutality beyond words.

What is it in a man that can do such a thing? Such an unspeakable thing?
My Muse didn't say this vision would be pleasant.
But what she does say is
As long as this reality exists on sacred Mother Earth
The most important vision there is for any and all
Is to find a way to end this unspeakable man-made sorrow
And return the field to sacred emerald green of
The womb/wisdom of our Mother.

And, then my Muse continues…
Again Fatuma's face shines before mine in the luminous dark.
She is on a bus, filled with singing women,
All sisters from this Rwandan horror,
All scarred by rape, torture, grief beyond the cold depths of space.
And they laugh, they sing, they dance, they rejoice together.
Yes, they rejoice. Can you imagine? Can you? Could you rejoice?
Moving in one rhythmic wholeness, they have found each other,
Women helping women, their loneliness relieved,
Replaced by open ruby heart smiles.
There are no words bleeding from these sacred woman-mouths.
They see each other through their glistening tears
Which they know come from the same great lake of despair.
That same lake lapping at shores of hearts inside all women who have known men's war for the last 5000 years…
They are on their way to meet sisters from the Congo--
Now the most dangerous place on the planet if you are a woman--
Who have endured the same man-made violence, rape, hatred and atrocity.
With open arms, they greet one another, hold each other.
There on the bridge is a sweet sister, Honorata,
Once captured and held as sex slave by
The insanity of men's disembodied clawing/craving/scratching.
Her open heart, her delicate eyes meet Fatuma's
Gentle sister kisses on warm soft cheeks, once made thin by soul starvation
Sparking sister remembrance of a time when children were safe.
Holy fragrance of women loving
Of loving women
Wafts, swirls and journeys across all pain, all suffering
Weaving,
Golden threads of beauty,
From Woman-bodies
Tensile strength stronger than the steel of men
Like Great Spider Mother,
Joining
Broken hearts,
Jagged scars,
Salty, star-kissed tears
Torn wombs
And lost children's tombs
Into tapestry of ancient, starry, deepest peace
That only women
Can create.