Conjuration, Of Poet-Prophets and their Translators

Hands and Weaving

by Wil Gafney

Conjure-women
conjure a world into existence
that exists between the worlds
of then and now and soon-come.

Writing on the skin of the world
with our bodies and breaths
ground to dust, blown away
yet living on the wind.

Pieces of poems
writing themselves on scraps and screens
stitching themselves together
into new canons.

Womanstory
Womansorrow
Womansong
Womanscripture

We are conjure women,
we who traverse portals opened by ancestral song,
we who dream the dreams and speak the tongues
of lands we have never seen.

Conjure-women conjure worlds from scraps
of scripture not meant for us.

I am a conjure woman
Whispering words into this world
to weave into those words, those old words
creating new worlds from all these words
and their gaps, spaces, and hollows.

 

The Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the author of Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of the Torah and of the Throne (Westminster/John Knox, 2017), a commentary on Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Wisdom series, Liturgical Press, 2017), and Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel, (Fortress, 2008).

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.