February 24, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
Poems
by Janine Canan
The World
Tree
I
The world has been stolen,
stolen away.
The world has been carved
into a million pieces, gone astray.
The world, I cry, our world
has been taken.
The bird hunts for her tree.
Stolen, stolen, she screams
and flies away.
II
It is a beautiful day --
Nature offers her beauty and kindness.
Glowing young pines dance in the breeze.
Shadows play on the grass,
the empty chair at peace.
Golden beams paint the room.
Even the siren seems not to complain.
War, starvation are forgotten.
Waves of love caress the earth.
III
No water to drink, no breathing trees,
no sweet atmosphere --
green jewel in the forehead
of Mother Universe --
they plunder it,
they rape it,
devour it -- cannibals --
they only lose their own souls --
umbilical to Her.
IV
We are part
of the earth.
She is part
of us.
We depend on her.
She depends on us.
The earth is our Mother.
And we are her children.
She gives us everything.
V
What can we do about
the males
who destroy everything
that they touch?
How can they be brought back
into the truth?
How can they be tamed
and taught?
How will they become human again?
VI
Do not grieve,
for She will always
be victorious,
She who is supremely
gorgeously true
to her own perfect being.
Worship Her and all
will come right again.
Remember, to worship Her.
To
Life
Dear Life, oh dearest
Life, come with me
wherever I go,
even when I drop
this fading body, come
oh beautiful Life, and keep on
coming, flowing, passing,
dreaming fearless, loving, wanting,
sweet Life, with your magic
dance of miracles,
your juggling balls of light,
your supreme womanly form,
your laughter down the cosmos,
your myriad jokes and jewels and truths,
your pure happy Self
that ensouls the universe,
come, oh Love, and always be
and never leave, beloved Life.
Janine Canan is the author of 13 collections of poetry, including Changing Woman (Small Press Review's "Pick of the Month"), She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets (Koppelmann Award for Best Edited Feminist Work), Star in My Forehead: Poems by Else Lasker-Schüler (translations, Booksense "Top Ten" & City Lights "Poetry Favorite"), and just released, In the Palace of Creation: Selected Poems 1969&emdash;1999. More editing is underway with In the Language of the Heart: Messages from Amma, and All Embracing Mother: Amma at the U.N.. Her work has been published in several dozen anthologies.
A graduate of Stanford, and NYU School of Medicine, Dr.Canan is also a psychiatrist. She Resides in Sonoma CA. Visit her web site: JanineCanan.com.