"Brown Woman" by Laurie Reiche

Brown Woman
after Ana Mendieta’s Tree of Life

Asherah, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Anath,
Ana, Ana, brown mud-buttered
Ana Mendieta, earth-creature, glop-
goddess guarding the Tree
of Life. Or issuing out of it
and stunned into being,
self-formed from melted terra-cotta?
Are you sleeping? Are you dreaming?
Have you arrived, or are you leaving?
I think you are hearing leaves speaking,
worms singing. I think you are a poultice
of knowing, a sign for the beleaguered,
a mother: mother, muck-lover of the world,
sodden messenger from the Garden, dark
dun-colored angel, goddess crucified,
resurrected, brown woman born
from the underground pulp-cave
and into the heavens, meant to be worshiped
like this tree, for the sake of the planet.

laurie reiche

Laurie Reiche is a writer, photographer, painter, and creative writing facilitator, she lives part time in London, where she concentrates on photographing the city, particularly Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury. She is the author of The Dance of the Carbon-Atom (Mellen Poetry Press, 1996) and has won first place in several contests, including the Riverrun Literary Publication of the University of Colorado Poetry Competition, the national Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize sponsored by Lilith, and the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference Contest. She is also a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Her work has won the Editors’ Choice Award for the best poetry in Inscape 2019 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Headshot Credit: Laurie Reiche

Photo Credit: Staff