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Poem # 4: Cedar Cathedral in the Catch the Bride’s Bouquet Series
The poem series is titled Catch the Bride’s Bouquet in reference to Leonard Cohen’s song The Gypsy’s
Wife (Cohen 2001) . Gypsy’s husband is looking for her and when he sees her surrenders to her.
Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe
A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee
She says, “My body is the light, my body is the way”
I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride’s bouquet.”
In my book, The World’s Geography of Love, I detail what happens when we surrender our living to the
influence of the feminine archetypal energies. Such a surrender balances the overdriven heroic
masculine archetype that rules us and our world culture.
This blog is the first of a series of poem blogs that grapple with the symbols and images of the heroic
masculine’s surrender to the love of the feminine as the glutinum mundi (glue of the world). It is my
hope that this series will inspire you to find your own balancing relationship with the masculine and
feminine archetypes in your life.
Play “Cedar Cathedral” Poem
In a virgin stand,
unspoiled by ax-man’s hand,
I laid naked at the Mother’s feet
Her girth tenfold mine,
Her height a day’s walk toward heaven,
Her embrace a cascade of silken boughs,
emerald green, under a blue sky mantle
bejeweled by golden streams of light
playing upon the flesh of her open glade.
I rested my cheek upon her bosom,
cloaked in moldering leaves
jewel coloured fungi,
suckled on her fecundity,
caught the rhythm of her heartbeat
echoing back to me
whispered secrets of my heart;
once again I knew my voice
spaces grew to fill the hunger.
© Geraldine Matus 02/2023 revision