1.
My great-aunt Elizabeth Fortune
stood under the honey locust trees,...
...the grass was warm as a bed, and the young man
full of promises...
...Later,
when the young man went away and came back with a
bride,
Elizabeth
climbed into the attic.
2.
Three women came in the night...
and take away the child...
3.
...Elizabeth Fortune was not see again
for forty years...
5.
...I asked my mother:
What happened to the man? She answered:
Nothing...
6.
...And should anyone be surprised
if sometimes, when the white moor rises,
women want to last out
with a cutting edge?
Now, more obvious than yesterday, Mary speaks of gender oppression to me. A reader, my beloved spouse and one of another gender, Meredith Garmon, wrote yesterday in response to "Spring"
When the man comes into his power,
sees the handhold chink in the wall of his oppression,
grips it,
lifts it over his head,
and sets it aside,
his natural love for mare and stallion
knows no snickers.
This is not easy, not hard, a long time coming.
When the woman comes into her power,
her natural love hears
the cries,
hears
the men laughing,
hears
the sounds of powerlessness lacquered over with a sheen of assertion,
hears
no objectifying anywhere.
This is not easy, not hard, a long time coming.
Perhaps we are not surprised that women lash out, but the bigger surprise is that we do not given the tragic choices of the past to meet the needs of love, intimacy, power, sex, and connection. If we lash out at men, or at women, are we also not lashing out against who we are? Our biology? Our culture? Our children? How then do we not lash out? Perhaps it is the mourning. We do not let women go to attics alone for 40 years hiding in shame, or men to not know how the community grieves the children's lives who come from acts without accountability. If we wailed with every action that speaks of broken trust and promises, to the betrayal of our biology and evolution, we might come to find that our biology, our urges, our sexuality is a holy trust. Would it be easy? Would it be hard? It is a long time coming, still.
Who do you know that was an "unplanned" child? How are lives you know impacted by sexual intimacy?
The unwanted children with whom I am most familiar are my neices and nephews adopted by my sister and brother-in-law. Their oldest was a product of the Korean War. The orphanage was happy to place her in America as being of mixed heritage she would have been an out cast in Korea. She was left on the steps of the orphanage, so she does not know her mother at all. The next two were removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect. As adults they did not recall their homes before being removed. When they searched for their mothers it was discovered that the mothers had died. Apparently the alcholic life style led to a young demise. The next one was given up for adoption because her mother recognized that she could not take care of her. She was only days old when she entered my sister's home. The others had been older. As an adult she located her biological mother in a near by town. She had spoken with her, but had not visited. When her mother died she went to the funeral and met other members of her family and has not kept in contact with them. The youngest two boys whom you have met were open adoptions. They know their mothers and visit them and talk with them by phone. The boys fully understand that their mothers could not and can not take care of them. They were products of males sexually taking advantage of their mothers.
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