artwork: remedios varo
Emerging Light
by Estella Lauter
after a painting by Remedios Varo,
“luz emergente”, 1962
There is another woman
lovely in her bones
delicate,
determined
Face feet and hand
emerge
from a
fissure in burlap
Her body waits
for
the vaginal tear
of natural birth
Her right hand holds the lamp
so
full of precious fluid
it overflows to christen
the unknowing one
who
peers in awe
from his dark place beneath
the floor
The wall will mend when she comes
when
her being quickens
when
her pallid face
is joined by the body
the
bones we only imagine
to
carry the lamp calmly
gently into our jagged lives.
~ previously published, in slightly different
form, in
Pressing
a Life Together by Hand (Finishing
Line Press)
