Poem: "The Goddess and the Bull"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem, inspired by a prompt from browngirl, has also been sponsored by her. I remember studying about the island of Crete and ancient Minoa back in Western Civilization class in high school.

The Goddess and the Bull

When the Goddess came down to Crete,
Which was Minoa of old,
She came in the form of a woman,
Her skirt belling like the sails of a ship.

When the God came down to Crete,
To Minoa before the Diaspora,
He came in the form of a bull,
His black sides broader than a ship’s hull.

They danced together,
And when she kissed his poll
Her lips left a mark like a star,
White against his flawless dark.

In Minoa before the waves rose
And the temples fell, the priestesses
Would dance with the god-blessed bulls who,
As calves, had slobbered kisses on novice hands.

The children born to the holy women
Were held sacred, believed to hold both
Women’s wisdom and bull’s strength,
Able to find their way through the world’s maze.

It is this which the myth of the Minotaur mocks,
The Labyrinth laughing down time at the bull-leapers,
But the skin of Crete lies over the bones of Minoa
And it is the bones that give shape to the body.