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    The Personal and the Political:
        What would Virgil say?
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It was an evening apt for contemplation
When quiet yielded to a cause of action:
A minor siege at feminism's walls,
Those walls of unity and not exclusion
Which have sustained me over some four decades.

This Internet encounter rather heated
Took as its focus often not so friendly
Another woman whom I much admire,
An activist not far from me in age. 
We are both daughters of the Second Wave
Though differing at times in stance and style:
For I am a nonviolent Amazon
Drawn often to quite radical positions;
And she a pragmatist most consummate,
Eager to listen, adept at details.

She was not present to defend herself
As adjectives unpleasant multiplied,
Some of them signalling misogyny;
Women and men alike took part with relish.
A socialist for peace I long have read,
A man who's gay, and came out after Stonewall,
Then asked this group that calls itself progressive 
Why sexist language was so freely used,
Helping in turn to bring my words to birth.

"Whatever our differences," I now declared,
"She is my sister, and she seems to me
Both competent and friendly: I would love
To have her as a neighbor or close friend."
With that I was content, whatever happened.
Amazon ethics fast embrace this precept:
"All women are valuable," and this means her.

Neither this gay male ally nor myself
Could stem the tide; such Internet discussions
Tend mainly to proceed from bad to worse.
To step into the breach was not to heal it:
Our arms of rhetoric and warm persuasion
Had, it was clear, been wielded quite in vain,
At least as judged by outcomes tangible.

Action gives way to quiet contemplation
As I reflect upon the larger patterns
Of patriarchy and misogyny
Too easily internalized, the roots
That branch into a labyrinth of oppressions,
Of colonizing violence and resistance
With women at the forefront of the struggle,
These patterns running through millennia.

The evening in due course draws near its close,
For Mother Nature in her ageless wisdom
Besieges me with sovereign tiredness,
A siege no woman can for long withstand;
Or from another view an invitation
More closely to approach my many sisters
Residing now in other worlds and spaces,
In whose domain I soon shall be a guest
As kind self-care each sacred night requires.

And next, I contemplate a certain sister
With whom I feel a tie of love most precious.
Our background stories rather curious
Embrace a common theme and mystery
We share together, each in her own way:
The crossing of the River Amasenus.
How intricate the dramas and dilemmas
Of privilege, strange exile, and homecoming,
A mystery shared also by our friends.

And then I wonder: What would Virgil say,
Cupid of this sweet amity sororal
Encompassing all, and knitting fast together
The personal and the political.

Here is a first most tentative conjecture:

"Good woman, I must give a twofold answer.
For as a chronicler of patriarchy
Tasked with the founding of imperial Rome,
Tracing its origins tragic and laborious,
To me your feminism must appear
Another world that leaves no room for mine, 
The world whose triumph was my high commission.
Your times are rather different, and quite strange,
With patriarchy often still prevailing;
And yet the banner of the Amazons
Which you and many sisters help to bear,
Gains here and there a high ascendancy,
Marking perhaps a sign of future ages.

"Returning to the context of my epic,
Which you embrace in sisterhood and love:
From this perspective you must represent
Another obstacle to be removed.
Yet you are human, and indeed intriguing,
A worthy adversary; in that spirit
I'll show you all the tenderness I can
In tracing out your counterpoint of love.

"My sister, now for you the war is over,
Or, at the least, a truce has been declared
As far as you're concerned: your captor, Time,
Subdues you by the gentle weight of hours,
Exhausting all your faculties and strength. 
Knowing this well, you first address your sisters
In whose direction you're about to travel,
Speaking a few brief words of love and trust:
`As promised, I surrender to my sisters,
Inviting you to accompany my journey,
At least for the next few hours.' With these words,
Your frame relaxes, willingly reclining,
Flowing and yielding to the pull of Earth,
Your body's warmth now very slightly cooling,
For thus is the circadian law of nature.
Now you release your grasp upon the reins
Of your four limbs and five external senses,
Relinquishing your weapons, principally
The javelin of your pen, and bow and quiver
Of rhetoric and discourse temporal.
Little by little, in your own good time,
You free yourself, a few most welcome hours,
From bodily cares, and enter other realms.
And so, my sister, as you make your journey,
I bid you go in peace and find contentment."

Margo Schulter
13 October-12 December 2016