Patricia Monaghan

From maidenly spring through abundant summer, then to blazing autumn and visionary winter, these poems trace the connections between the seasons of the earth and those of women's lives. The poems are often used in women's spirituality, as meditations and as songs. The book comes complete with a CD of the poems set to music in styles ranging from folk to jazz.


Hera Renews Her Youth

Now is the time that I choose. Hermit
winter is over, my widow season.
I want lust now, endearments,
longing and song. The trees on

the hillside renew themselves
as I do. Oh, my grand thick trunk
that holds me stiff so my tassels
and catkins can fly! Oh, I’m drunk

with my greenness again! Every branch
has budded before, has flown
into leaf and then blanched
into fall. But I’m new in my bones

when I choose, I’m blood-young again,
I rise fresh as washed granite
from foam, I love whom and when
I choose. Here I stand, pomegranate

in hand, ripe as a bud but old, old
as rock, unshakeable now, a power
essentially female and free. Hold
my ripe breasts. I’ll be gone in an hour.