For All Those Who Died

For All Those Who Died

Erica Jong c. 1981

For all those who died
stripped naked, shaved, shorn

For all those who screamed
in vain to the great goddess
only to have their tongues
ripped out by the root.

For all those who were pricked, racked, broken on the wheel
for the sins of their Inquisitors

For all those who beauty
stirred their torturers to fury;
& for those whose ugliness did the same.
For all those who were neither ugly nor beautiful,
but only women who would not sumbit.

For all those quick fingers
broken in the vise.

For all those soft arms
pulled from their sockets.

For all those budding breasts
ripped with hot pincers.

For all those midwives killed merely for the sin
of delivering man
to an imperfect world.

For all those witch-women, my sisters
who breathed freer
as the flames took them.

knowing as they shed
their female bodies,
the seared flesh falling like fruit
in the flames,

that death alone would cleanse them
of the sin for which they died,

the sin of being born a woman,
who is more than the sum
of her parts.

Thought I would share some of what we have been studying in a local class I am
taking. Started a class called Magic 101 and the first part is learning
the history of Wicca. Wanted to share this with anyone who has not read
this before. Think everyone had at least one tear in their eyes when we
were done reading

Sherrie