Fauna

I never even noticed that door
until she walked through it, grace
herself casting earthworm magic
through inscrutable muck.

I'd been stuck for days. My eyes
were caked with mud, mercilessly
rich and fertile, as I twisted lamely
in the root grasp of myrtle.

So that when she appeared,
a cup of warm wine half-finished
in her hand, the other outstretched
like a kite working the storm

and winning, she passed through
a door I hadn't seen. I was stultified
and in love. I forgot myself, and her eyes
touched mine as though passing the salt.

So comfortable, so cold. Then she was gone,
and I cannot find the door. I recall that she bore
snake bites for bracelets, knives at her knees,
burrs laced in her hair, herself like a key.

NB: Fauna, whose name was taboo, was known by Romans as Bona Dea, was a sort of goddess of empowered female fertility. She was worshipped by lower-class citizens, especially slaves and oppressed women. She is variously the daughter/sister/wife of the god of fertility, Faunus (aka Bacchus). She is understood as a sexual but chaste woman.

Macrobius reports that Faunus tried to force her to have sex with him, and beat her with myrtle twigs when she resisted. He prevailed over her by turning into a serpent and penetrating her in this form. Plutarch explains that Faunus killed her with myrtle rods when he discovered she had been secretly been drinking wine—a pleasure forbidden to women under old Roman law.

By all accounts, Fauna struggles against a male in authority over her, who responds with violence. This injustice symbolized women's oppression to her seceret votaries. No mention of man, myrtle nor wine was permitted in her rites of worship.

Fauna represents the thin line between the wild from the untamed. She brings prophecy through dreams and voices in the wild, and her association with dreams and nightmares again connects to humanity's dark and untamed nature. Read more about Fauna here: http://bit.ly/fauna .