How through the ages they placed upon her
all manner of restraints, dark devices diabolical,
failing nonetheless to strike silent the life that lived through her
and in time seeing their own reflection in their practiced torture
and the tantamount truth of their own tortured soul.

Your shame is not my shame.
I am not this monstrosity you made of me
and she lives, free to return to the freedom
that bore her through those ages.

How from one year to the next, undaunted, she rose
to do her best, to give her all, to find some rest, to heed the call.
And this it seemed was something they deemed too much,
their misappropriation of her love a blatant blasphemy of all
creation's light, a shattering of the peace-filled, day-born night.

Your shame is not my shame. 
I will no more bend to all the barriers built,
pyramids of projection that are mere inversion
to save you from a cavernous ache of empty.

How this day there comes faint echo across these hills,
a whimpering turned to bloodthirsty howl that would kill the owl
and seize and shake the very thing that might hold the key
to release them from their suffering. She no longer shivers
but walks in cool clear rivers singing a freedom song .

Your shame is not my shame.
I choose to nurture the seed that yet grows
for the time of this life that remains and to be
who I am and have been and to begin again again.