July 2020 Gathering Highlights

Topic – Victimhood: How I embrace it

The Gathering opened by calling the directions.

Spirit Calling Song

Sanskrit Song

Food of Love

Following is the poem Food of Love by Carolyn Kizer. It was recited by Gene Marckx as a way for us to move into our topic.

Food of Love

by Carolyn Kizer

About the Author

                Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.

                                —SAMUEL BUTLER II

I’m going to murder you with love;

I’m going to suffocate you with embraces;

I’m going to hug you, bone by bone,

Till you’re dead all over.

Then I will dine on your delectable marrow.

You will become my personal Sahara;

I’ll sun myself in you, then with one swallow

Drain your remaining brackish well.

With my female blade I’ll carve my name

In your most aspiring palm

Before I chop it down

Then I’ll inhale your last oasis whole.

But in the total desert you become

You’ll see me stretch, horizon to horizon,

Opulent mirage!

Wisteria balconies dripping cyclamen.

Vistas ablaze with crystal, laced in gold.

So you will summon each dry grain of sand

And move towards me in undulating dunes

Till you arrive at sudden ultramarine:

A Mediterranean to stroke your dusty shores;

Obstinate verdure, creeping inland, fast renudes

Your barrens; succulents spring up everywhere,

Surprising life! And I will be that green.

When you are fed and watered, flourishing

With shoots entwining trellis, dome and spire,

Till you are resurrected field in bloom,

I will devour you, my natural food,

My host, my final supper on the earth,

And you’ll begin to die again.

Discussion

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