Meeting Hecate--Another poem for Native American Heritage Month

This poem is based on a traditional Cherokee teaching story my grandmother used to tell me when I was small. 

MEETING HECATE

How I fear the witch in me,

the one in touch

with power, the one who knows

without knowing

how, the secret

priestess, spirit-bearer, the ugly side

of woman, the crone—

and I remember the Cherokee

legend of Stoneskin, superhuman

cannibal, devouring whole

villages, how the People

set up a fortress of women

menstruating, how the sight

of each weakened Stoneskin

until he died and, dying, told them

all the secrets, ways

of power, conjure spells, ways

to do things.

The Cherokee live

off the wisdom

of a dying monster and the power

of bleeding women, and they remember

this. There is a witch somewhere

in every woman.

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)