Month of Poetry #18: Yemaya

Today's poem is about Yemaya. In Yoruba mythology, Yemaya is a mother spirit; patron spirit of women, especially pregnant women; the ocean; and the Ogun river. Her name is a contraction of the Yoruba words "Yeye omo eja" which means "Mother whose children are like fish." This represents the vastness of her motherhood, her fecundity, and her reign over all living things.

I'm trying this one as a pantoum, which is a Malaysian verse form comprising a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next. The second and fourth lines of the final stanza repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza.

I don't mind this one, actually.

Yemaya

The lady moves slowly, calm across water
Over the seas but not supping salt;
Her hand raised high, every woman her daughter
In grip of their birthing, heaven-earth in gestalt.

Over the seas but not supping salt
Her children like fish, darting silver and sly;
In the grip of birthing, heaven-earth in gestalt
Bringing the soil right up to the sky.

Her children like fish, darting silver and sly
In rivers and wellsprings and sea-mouths and pools;
Bringing the soil right up to the sky
Her brown eyes see everything, shining like jewels.

In rivers and wellsprings and sea-mouths and pools
The children of spirit cleave close to the land
Her brown eyes see everything, shining like jewels
The infants are born under her shelter-hand.

The children of spirit cleave close to the land
The lady moves slowly, calm across water;
Her brown eyes see everything, shining like jewels,
Her hand raised high, every woman her daughter.

- Kathy, 18/01/16