Womanhood and the Sea: A Poem by AE Somerville

I am a wild, whirling sea of sweet femininity;
a mind full brave and free with thoughts unfurling and aglow,
and here I am, exquisite, as the reef once was with coral;
my soft-shelled heart pumping blue with gyres
and directing unexplored rivers below,
while I smile and laugh at the mysteries of the coming night.

Tightly patterned with sun-salted life and sedimental death,
I teem with eyes like marbles that shine with the sanity of reason,
while still my wave-hips and all my tide-swell curves
are set in motion by the passionate hold of a full moon,
and my spreading waters mirror the forests and the clouds,
where creatures of the land and air look on but do not see.

Six times caught and dashed against the beams, I have struggled free,
and I cast my trauma like weed upon the rocks,
who with their jagged limpet hides are ready 
to receive the crash of my breaking sea-pains,
and to carry them far above soporific suns 
and beyond the pink horizons of a stunning but indifferent world.

And still, I am a wild, whirling sea of sweet femininity,
and I make no apology for the gentle calm of my great ocean-power,
as I wait for the crab and the turtle to find their way home,
and for the whale and the dolphin to flood me with song,
for I am a place of safety and a place of music for the respectful pilgrim;
a place to swim in the depths of wisdom, or to glimpse at the origins of life.

 © Poem by AE Somerville (formerly Somerville-Wong)

To Hell with Remembrance Day: A Poem by AE Somerville

Take my mind instead to the machines
that wait to end the world,
and to the places where soldiers cry
for their mothers in the sand and the mud.
Take me to the grave pits,
to the prison camps, death camps 
and the scenes of murder, rape and torture,
and to the slave houses, 
and the re-education rooms.
For there, only there, you will teach me 
the meaning of the thing we call peace;
And after I have witnessed first-hand
the worst that humanity does to its own,
take me to the corridors and theatres 
of power, which we have left vacant,
and to the empty columns 
and screens of influence;
the places where the narcissist
and the sociopath are pleased to go,
but where the great and the good 
dare not show their dispassionate faces;
For there, only there, will I discover
whether I love this thing we call peace,
enough to go where it is made or lost
and bear the cost of it.
For how else can we remember all 
our butchered dead?
What else could possibly be fitting?

Take me then to where the righteous 
hide their cowardice behind peace banners 
and under poppies of red, white and black,
and purple, and God knows what else;
where they hide it under liturgy and ceremony,
and prayers and preaching.
Take me to the arms deals and land deals,
and to the waste grounds and toxic pools
and to all the acts of savage exploitation
with which we are complicit.
Then take me to the home of the
next great social reformer,
for whom we wait most anxiously,
so I can tell them that their leadership
comes always far too late,
when dystopia is already upon us;
when the minds of generations 
are strewn in ruins at our feet;
and when war has become the most terrible of duties.
Then take me to the so-called spiritual
leaders; pompous old men who’ve grown fat 
on the souls and the labours of the weak minded,
so that I might turn them over like tables
and spin them around on their heads.
At least that way they’ll be entertaining!

And if you really don’t want peace;
if peace is dull and drab,
and fighting is glamorous, chivalrous,
glorious and holy,
say so for God’s sake and be damned!
…you who stand and pontificate
with your righteous belligerence!
And you with your righteous pacifism,
your wilful ignorance
and your determined sleepwalking;
Stand like grown women and men
and tell yourself the painful truth, 
that for most of humanity, 
hate has always been 
a greater motivator than love,
and greed a greater driver than fairness, 
such that warfare is as much an 
inevitable folly as it ever was,
and peace a pipe dream for the coddled
and the violently deluded.

I look for a way passed this fate,
but there is none to bring any comfort.
Only by going to the places of terror, Humanity,
will you glimpse the full brightness of love,
and want it with greater fervour,
than the zeal with which you issue hate;
And only by experiencing a shared life
will you learn to value its comforts and joys 
as much or more than private gain.
Only then will we break free 
from the cycle of self-destruction;
And it is hard, I know, because this love must be
so much greater than the one most of us 
have ever known or practiced,
and this sharing must be so much
deeper than what came before,
And I have no idea whether we will 
discover, let alone master these things well enough
to build a civilisation upon them;
one that will rise and rise
and which will not fall because its end 
is a utopia that’s always enticing,
always just that little bit out of reach
and sincerely longed for above all else.

So why remember and stand on ceremony
in the cold chill of November, 
unless you’re going to rise from the dead
to lead the peace?
Why take your place among dignitaries,
or faith leaders, or among the honoured,
unless you’re going to recognise 
the face of war in their avarice and their platitudes
and in the violence of their power and privilege;
unless you’re going to expose devils
in their industrial and ministerial guises?
Why fall in line among the people,
unless you’re going to challenge
them in their complacency?
And why on earth would you stand at a stone cross 
covered in wreaths of poppies,
while you bring up your boys 
and many of your girls 
to express nothing of emotion but anger,
so that they end up knowing
no emotion but anger, and doing nothing,
but waging war upon a world that’s already dying?

 Ⓒ Poem by AE Somerville (formerly Somerville-Wong)