THE BLACK SHAWL:

Wrapped in my black shawl, the day I came to earth,

Swaddled in such shame, by lone mother at my birth,

Flung upon the universe, with a stigma on my name,

Growing under black shawl, the one they couldn´t tame.

 

I danced under old full moons, with wolves & forest folk,

I drank wine of icy streams & wild herbs, I would smoke,

My lips were painted red, with sinful berries of old fall,

But, always around my being, I wore my old black shawl.

 

To balls I would go, dressed in pretty, soft & silken gown,

“The shameful little hussy,” I was called, around the town,

With tasseled black shawl, draped around my stoic shoulders,

Walking proud, beneath the weight of stigma’s stony boulders.

 

When laid in my coffin, at my end of time, upon this earth,

With forest lips kissed by berries & as naked as my birth,

Protected now & soft mantled, by Angel´s sighing breath,

The black shawl´s protection is shed in gentleness of death.