Reconciliation Poem by Joan Woodbridge

Only now may it be spoken
that the Divine had placed her numinous imprint
upon the earth of those several young summers

Beyond The Law that poured from the mouth of her mother
Beyond The Law that lived uncertainly in the heart of her father
she discovered a city of refuge
separate generous nameless without discord.
and this mere steps from the
plate-shattering
word-hurling
din of the house of war

Thus was the conflict-laden foundation born/borne:
concealment duplicity shame; joy beauty peace
one guilty foot in each world

How then does one reconcile the hellish and the holy?

Earnest earth constant earth
your spun sun draws blood
disclosing the tiny seeds and delicate veins
implicit in the globed translucent fruit
chthonic green spears
bursting into the astonished grass-
your arbors sweet with purple grapes

to whom can this child turn?
not to the Church
not to Moloch
and not to The Law

where now is the original song that
set free melts iron bars and demolishes false borders?

Is it she, then?
Is it the diapason of her own primal voice
that will reconcile
finally
these immense contradictions?