Art keeps saving me

Not because it is political, even though it is, always, political. Not as a diversion. Something else.

Some heartbeat, a woman speaking at her murdered child’s grave in Iran, against a grey sky. The dancing too. A cosmic Fuck You, the heat of a mother’s vengeance and there is nothing on this earth so fierce or powerful or consuming. It will set fire to anything in its path, burn it down, drown it.

Some heartbeat, the blood in me, in my child; how some mother, some daughter, will survive the bombs to tell their story, paint their song.

How the ancient poets knew that it is all women’s business, even when the men do it. We of the blood and milk and the honey and the salt.

Turn to the ancient poets of war and sex. To Sappho and her world of fragments. The Thunder: Perfect Mind. The wives lamenting.

A woman’s photographs of mothers birthing. It is all black and red.

Blood, long dark hair in pictures on a wall in Sydney, in words.

The braiding women will bear witness, catch the flow.