Rethinking Thought: A Poem

We must learn to be thought 

by the gods, not to think them.

~ Robert Bringhurst

We twist and turn under the weight of inner dissonance, and 

must go in search of radical acceptance—a willingness to 

learn and relearn what is elemental—the root of what is—

to redefine the world through creaturely women’s eyes, and 

be open-hearted and ready for earth-shattering change. Our 

thought must return to the soil beneath our feet, for only 

by returning to the ground of being, the fertile dirt, will 

the body of the Mother be spared, will Life return, will the 

gods welcome us home

not to undergo this search, this transformation of thought, is 

to let Life down, to succumb to un-aliveness, and to 

think ourselves into what can only be the end; for it is 

them—those old gods—who made us. Without them, we cannot be

*

I wrote this poem due to an idea I came across when reading Issue 6 of Dark Matter: Women Witnessing recently. Erica Charis-Molling’s poem, ‘The End of Night,’ is what’s known as a ‘haiku acrostic,’ using each word from a haiku as the first word for each line of her own poem. I thought this would be an interesting challenge, something that I could use to prompt my own writing. I have not used a haiku, but a line from Robert Bringhurst’s poem, ‘Xenophanes,’ to impel my own thoughts.