WOLF ROSARY
Hail, Mother of Howls,
we who have ears hear you.
By the chill down the long bones,
by the quaver of the pulse,
we know your song,
and we know this song has no words.
Forgive us our words.
Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs,
Blessed are you among she-wolves,
and blessed are the litters you whelp,
the river of wolves that runs in our blood.
Hail, Mother Fang, you bite deep
into our brains, past the clot of memory
and language, you bite deep
and we know again
the smell of your must
and the taste of beestings;
we know again
the tang of iron in hot blood;
the communion of snarls
over a fresh killl;
we know again
the taste of snow in deep winter
trickling to a hunger-knotted stomach.
Fangs of your fang,
tongues of your tongue,
feral children alone in the night,
we give voice,
and what music we make!
We know the song has no words.
Forgive us our words.
Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs,
Blessed are you among she-wolves,
and blessed are the litters you whelp,
the river of wolves that runs in our blood.
Note: The above is work-in-progress, or rather, liturgy-in-progress. As some of you know, Mrs. Dr. Omed has charged me with the task of composing what I like to call an Atheist Feminist liturgy, a body of work that will eventually comprise a sort of Book of Common Prayer for the unchurched--those who live their lives outside any church and without reference or recourse to god, or what the churched think of as god.
Wolf Rosary was written for a friend who was recently diagnosed as Bipolar—a Manic Depressive. The metaphor she and her husband use to refer to Bipolar Disorder is Lycanthropy—she is a lycanthrope, a werewolf. Since I have survived to my jubilee year (49) with full blown Manic Depression (and without diagnosis or treatment until age 37), I feel a bit like a hoary old village elder to all the bipolar lycanthropes round about. Want to see my teeth? I still got 'em.
5:29:39 PM 
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