Inanna,
Sumerian goddess,
presides over both love and war.
She lost all her armor in the realm of the dead,
shedding her layers through seven gates.
Though rescued by her servant,
she was now tied to the seasons,
traveling the same road as Persephone,
in the divine dream of Dante.
Though the river of Heraclitus is never the same,
nor is the traveler.
The way home is both a long fall and a steep climb,
a path of snakes between the above and the below,
a corridor between oceans,
a trail forged by meteors.
The way back is through open eyes,
past monuments of darkness and light,
beneath a star that burns away all eyes
that dare to look.
Inanna whispers to the fallen moon
as the tide goes out so she can walk across islands.
But to return to the world,
she must first lose the way.
The journey back is through veils,
through archways and tunnels,
past highway signs of rain
and across battlefields turned to deserts.
Inanna whispers in a valley beyond death
and somehow can be heard above
the breaking waves
a world away
and a moment past surrender.


By Howard Gipstein
Copyright © 2022 by Howard Gipstein

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