The Lady Conjures a Lion

(This pastel and ink drawing is for sale at my store on ETSY)

The Lady Conjures a Lion

A lion without
Dorothy or Auntie Em
The scarecrow, tin man or
MGM.
A lion-less lion
Neither boy nor girl
hailing from an orange world.

The lady conjures a lion
the way lions look in other worlds
eroded by other wars
a lion with a staircase for its body
containing earth’s eternity, power and pain.
The lady conjures a lion –
This was not her intent
Yet she embraced its prowess and mystery
Climbed its series of steps
Without Bibles, ballads,
whips or guns
And found herself living in the
Universe of its belly.
Its newest pregnancy
not immaculate
but a consummation
of the lady’s conjuring
and the animal’s openness
in an orange sand desert
beneath the ground underground.

A lion without
Dorothy or Auntie Em
The scarecrow, tin man or MGM
A lion-less lion
Neither boy nor girl
hailing from an orange world.

When the lady conjures a lion
It does not swear or spit
Or come attached to a green and jaded jungle
But joined, instead, to its staircase of pregnancies
Digging deep into an orange ground.
And the lady who conjured the lion
Understands that this is the lion
At its most supernatural,
Un-caged in openness
Its steps suggesting levels.
When the lady conjures a lion
It does not use its mouth to roar
But uses its presence to buzz
In the mouths of lion-less carolers
Who sing into the myth of its patriarchy
Something so maternal
that it exists in dualities
Then multiplicities
And can fly as much as it can run or swim
Or present its belly to us in steps or stages
And we can call it with great pleasure,
‘The best of the beasts.’

A lion without
Dorothy or Auntie Em
The scarecrow, tin man or MGM
A lion-less lion
Neither boy nor girl
hailing from an orange world.