Poem - Power of Animal

At night
I open my window to the moonlight,
to hear the coyotes calling
across the divides of suburbia
from their open space.
Then I open more and can hear Birth sounds calling,
familiar echoes that our grandmothers heard too.
That indigenous power
strains against the edges of civilization,
against the measured landscape of a misogynist culture.
Some fear that wild animal
who walks in the dark
to the song of Her own breath and moans-
who freely gives life to Her child, body and soul,
by the strength of Her in-born hormonal nectar,
well-fed uterine muscles, and
untamed woman's instinct.
--by Terra Rafael