Seek Not to Hold Her


Seek not to hold her
for she is given
to the bees.

Her  breasts are two
white roses
dispensing sweet nectar

and the ripening fruit
of her womb is what the world
waits for -
in the patient eyes
of her lover
and in the flaming palms
of supplicants
starving, under the Indian
sun.

Seek not to hold her
for she will give birth
among the bees, alone
in the wilderness

and when she passes
wide winged
with her precious progeny -
on the windswept soil
which has forgotten
how to weep
you will hear the
fresh dew falling.


JEHANNE MEHTA