O maid, you once were lovely,
full of grace, and named
for Wisdom in eternal female form–
Metis, Maat, Medha the names you bore…
But the passing generations,
reshaping and restructuring the norm,
made you over as a thing to fear,
no longer Maid, but monstrous
with a deadly, stony gaze;
Men made you cruel and cold
and perilous to life in latter days,
forgetting that the peril in your eyes
is Truth too true for them to see, and live.
Grim-faced now, the Gorgon who is wise,
whose serpents in her hands once offered Life,
now writhe in ringlets on her brow
And Perseus pursues her with a knife…
CL Redding 2005
LOOSELY SPEAKING... 