We are taught how to love... a poem by Veronica Farmer

Women
are taught
how to love

Be beautiful
Display yourself
in a shop window 
of an evening

Look, seek, pine
crave  
and search
Quick now!
Before your dewy skin 
begins to lose its glow

Find
a prince
on a shining stallion
a king
with ruthless strength
a wild man
with arms of steel
Contract yourself
 
Women
are taught how to love
to quieten the throat
words and ancient knowing locked away
But you may
expect
or control 
Another
to ensure safety 

Women 
are taught how to love
find someone fast now
to bear the sack of gold 
For you will carry other great
sacks on your back
unseen by others
but they must be perfectly sewn
embroidered with stories to impress

Men are taught how to love
To carry an unspoken load
be a pack horse
bearing a backpack of stones
This is expected
without words
the eyes explain
just as soft hair arrives 
above still soft lips

Men are taught how to love
To compete
or opt out
Either be the victor
with one foot on another's throat
or be
a failure in the man-game
only two choices

It is time 
for another way to Love
And it is time 
for this way to come 

the burden of man
to the Patriarch
and the serving of women to it
is becoming tiring
no longer satisfies
We can all feel it...

Times of living lonely
in small boxes
confused pushing silver steeds
in bright lit malls
our weekend spiritual church
has lost its pleasure

The baubles made by exhausted
Chinese children
once brought home with pride
now lead to sleepless nights of worry
how to pay?
how to pay?

We are remembering
that we are
in fact
hunters
gatherers
tribal

Capable of wide love
Better in community
We offer more
Remember more of ourselves
When we gift and receive
from each other

That we can
Be beautiful in our real
That we can 
Look inside
And see
We are love
and strength
Enough
Both
And we can
Do it 
Be it
and walk beside each other
not behind or ahead

Remembering the reason you came
into this body
Why you are here
Heals this need
this craving
this resistance and discomfort
in the old identities

In holding your own body
as a sacred treasure
in knowing it
in loving it
in using it fully

You become
The Strength 
The Power
The Heart
The Love

That calls your tribe
to you

Men throw down your armour
Women leap from the tower 
onto the back of your own horse
Let your mane run behind you free
The tribe can ride
side by side
exhilarated and unbound

And the love 
real love
free and truthful
unweighted
Is you 
all by itself

All rights reserved Veronica Farmer for The Lioness Project Poetry www.tlppoetry.com