[Editor’s Note: the following poem will appear in Ms Canan’s forthcoming anthology Ardor: Poems of Life (Pilgrims Press).]

Heaven is hers, Earth is hers.
She is a warrior, She is a falcon,
She is a great white cow.

She fought the dragon and slew it.
She seduced the scorpion and tamed it.
The golden lion sleeps at her side.

She is the singer. She is desire.
She is the mountain of silver and gold and lapis.
On her hips tall trees grow, and grasses.

From Her, waters spout and savory grains.
Her lap is holy, her lips are honey,
her hand is law.

Her breast pours heavenly rain.
She is the healer. She is life-giver.
She is the terror, the anger, the hunger.

Fierce winds blow from her heart.
Hers is the thunder, the lightning, the glory.
She is the morning, She is the evening, She is the star.

She wears the gown of mystery.
Heaven is hers! Earth is hers!
Who can argue?

[From poet Janine Canan have come the award-winning collections Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart and She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets; translations of the French poet Francis Jammes and German-Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schueler; two illustrated storybooks, Journeys with Justine and Walk Now in Beauty: The Legend of Changing Woman; her collected essays, Goddesses Goddesses; and many books of poetry including Ardor: Poems of Life, Changing Woman, a Small Press Review selection, and Of Your Seed, recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

Janine lives in California’s Valley of the Moon, where she is a practitioner of holistic psychiatry, graduate of New York University School of Medicine and Stanford cum laude, and a follower of the Indian saint and humanitarian Mata Amritanandamayi. Please visit her site  for more information.]