Matryoshka
Mothers of the World, unite…
I have a Babushka.
Seven beautifully painted wooden dolls that fit snug, one inside the other –
reminding me of generations of mothers carrying their grandchildren inside themselves from birth.
A rich metaphor for Gaia — the warm, fecund Mother of our earth,
as told by the ancient brother.
I look at her again — and see Matryoshka herself –
Russia’s round, rural symbol, redolent with fertile flowers,
morphing, blank-faced into a Metropolis monster.
Twisted open by a small man with a power problem.
Now, the grainy black and white imagery of suffering and genocide re-asserts itself everywhere
like some bad B-movie that lodges in the subconscious
as row after row of red mothers line up to disgorge their stacked contents
into the fluttering blue and yellow.
Pandora style, missiles and Hell are let loose and in this Part Two of the myth,
Hope, again, sits tight.
As for the tiny despot, he un-screwed his own nature long ago.
