The house is quiet
when I enter this private place,
this holy place,
to listen to my private oracle,
my comforter,
while I chase down my holy grail.

This holy grail for me
is my philosophy,
that I spent a lifetime pursuing.
I was pushed and pulled
into a blackened pit
strewn with many lifetimes’ worth
of desecrated dogmas.

I was expected not to question,
just accept as man had
dutifully done for centuries.
But life’s ironies consumed
an enormous part of me
as the maternal segment refused
to feed the children of my heart
an unpalatable meal.

Strong arms lifted me
and the nearing century
found me
in august terms in a legacy.

But I will leave some memos,
essays, words of many muses,
whose meanings are dressed
in costumes of countless lifetimes.
There will be ledgers
on how to build a life
with digestible ingredients.

Done as the mother of sons
whose hearts and minds she swallowed
so they would never, ever
think that she took
the keys of the kingdom

and left them bereft.