Augustus

Byzantine Woman Scholar

Where the Nile bleeds into the sea

A menstrual glow nourished a seed of knowing.

Seekers found, learned, expanded and extolled

This seedling to sapling to timber to charisma

To a forest of math, music, astronomy and philosophy:

Beauty, verity and virtue unfold as jealousy eavesdrops.

Truth questions fable, myth and avarice while Theocracy  itches.

Authority plots, forges, condemns and excites

Treachery to bend limbs of maturity to the streets

Where sickened shells scrape bark from the living tree.

The cambium, its defense against decay is exposed.

Zealot nails are driven into her pulp with lust as

Branches are dragged, ripped and burned within the church.

Christ chokes on the fumes.

The smoke signals an exodus, a Diaspora.

The mist mutes womankind.

The vapor forebodes Seminal Dominance.

Menses flow to the dark ages.

 

 

 

 

Augustus / Folsom / October 2016