How to Become the Oracle

The female body, its creases and declivities,
leading to the sacred opening . . .
          Amy Clampitt
          from her poem, “Dodona: Asked of the Oracle”

You fear the opening that could bare you to anything--
probes, blades, blunt instruments; the fondler, abuser,
rapist. You close down to keep yourself intact. Nothing
can harm the force that animates your molecules, ties you
to everything, gives you your place and your part. Give up

doubt. It doesn’t suit you. Do for yourself what you do
for everyone else: bear the deepest good. Become a vessel
capable of holding the peregrine falcon, its stupendous
ability to see, to dive, to find from three thousand feet
the morsel that will feed it. Hold the five-hundred-year
forest, ringed with lightning, drought, fire, flood. Hold
the rippling cloud, the vital brightness beyond, blue
so vivid it wets your eyes without trying. Give up

trying so hard, what tries you, makes you ride your
high horse, as if you could ever be a proper woman.
Ditch the sidesaddle, the dictate to tuck your skirts
primly beneath you. Open your sacred legs astride
that brawny back and ride for all you’re worth. Let
your hair, your face, your skin ravish the wind. Feel
 
the grip of your thighs holding you on that glorious
back, galloping, thick mane in your fists. Feel the dust
fly in your wake. Feel the lengthening gait, as if
any moment you could be airborne. Lean in, wrap
your arms around the ample neck, offer no resistance.
Become the creature that rides waves of muscle,
air and light: part woman, part horse, part prophet.
Become the being that brings the horse to its wildest.

Winner of the 2009 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize
from CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women