Egg Mother

Leonard Baskin

Gehenna Press Printwork

17×11 in
Woodcut

Egg Mother
by Ruth Fainlight

In the same soothing tone the god uses
before he mounts her, she whispers
secrets that the stars and trees have told her
against the bird’s warm neck
then grips him firmly around feathery sides.

His strong wings raise them high above the coast
and follow the river’s trail
glinting up the valley to its mountain
source. Brought on the backs
of their oracular birds to a rock-strewn field

below the summit-line, sibyls gather:
the Delphic and the Persian,
Cumaean, Erythraean, Tiburtine,
and those from even further –
sudden great oases, weed-fringed islands.

As if it were the Orphic World Egg,
a silver moon floats up
to signal her arrival, and all the women
turn to watch the bird
settle, and catch her first words and smiles.

Using the same tones their gods do,
gentling them into submission.