Sauna

The presence of you makes me whole 
As you stroke your clay skin,
Your profile like an earth mother's.
Your daughter with the long limbs that stretch across a desert
Calls to you from the outside in words I do not understand,
Yet in a tongue that all of us know and find solace in,
Like the reassurances of the ivory-skinned mother to her two chalk-haired girls
That this bench will do fine, the top bench is too warm,
Yes, too warm dear ones,
Do you think so mother? Oh yes I do, dear one, I do.

A young boy scans the landscape of female forms,
Of grandmothers, mothers and sisters who remind him
Of something ancient beyond living memory that has no explanation.

Shapes, forms, tones, sounds, moving, waiting, whispering
As the steam rises and our healing brings balance to the universe
In this space from which we are all born.

Since the 13th century the sauna in Scandinavia has been a sacrosanct place where the peace may not be broken.