#5 The Burden of Stone Emma McKervey

The Burden of Stone

The Egyptian Goddess Nut sprawls across the heavens,

or apparently she is the heavens, holding down form and order

and keeping the chaos out, although its hard to know

which way she prefers to face.

To move in time and place to Greece it becomes Hera

who decorates that expanse; her milk in fountained spray

from exposed and suddenly unbabied breast

splatters the Milky Way before her composure is recovered.

Both are heifers really, with tender, swollen udders hanging low

and their difficulties lie, not in the weight which pushes in from above,

but in the hot ache of flesh stretched thin,

in finding the right vessel to fill, rivers to flood, heroes to nurse.

They have no time for the quiet burden of stone

that causes shoulders and necks to seize in unnatural curves,

that is a millstone on the brow, the weight of stone

bearing down on the Earth, unable to look up at the sky.