Other Voices Magazine

The Monthlies

Prompt for September 2010

“My past remains tangled up in itself like damp sheets after a night of sleepless thrashing, only to greet the daylight with hours unaccounted for.“—Gina Frangello, My Sister’s Continent.

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Winner August 2010

“Pele, the goddess of the volcano, did not create the volcano. She took possession of the volcano. She assumed control over a force of nature that already existed. She had to search for the right place to exert her power, the place where she could become a goddess.

… Pele the goddess is simply a woman with special authority and special powers. Her mana, her spiritual power, is exceptional, but her body is a normal female body.

… If the body is the vehicle of the spirit—not just it’s container—if the spirit of the body is the Spirit, then our bodies give us the means to that power.”

—Alice Bloch, “Learning the Hula.”

With the variable mana of a woman
by Megan Paranich

some days she is Athena,
her spear and wit keen.
On others she is Kali
and she is strong enough
to end, to be the Black Mother.
Kuan Yin, a gentle touch, or
Maat, with luminous honesty.
But never is she more a goddess
than when she is Pele.

On these days, she loves to wear red,
though it may not be her favourite colour,
because to her it is a mirror.
Her sacrum ignites.
Her vertebrae are smouldering
coals that feed the
heat of her organs.
By breakfast, her blood is magma
and the fog of morning is scorched away.

The men
and the women
at the office,
the gym,
the pool,
the boutiques,
the streets
are drawn
like moths to a flame.

In her living room,
white lace curtains thrown wide,
the sultry brilliance of a musky dusk spilling
through, soaking the room and
saturating her skin with beading
sweat making her dazzle, she
feels the drums’ beats, sees
the vibrations behind closed lids and
tastes the fire on her
tongue, breath coming from deep in her
core, steaming through her mantle.
Her feet stomp, rumble, hips sway
in a revel. Her spirit shapes itself into
a volcano.

She is not a woman of the moon,
no tender celibate caretaker to await
the push and pull of cycles
determined by something other.
She is not a silver ray in the night.
She is a woman of the earth, red, full—
a female born of embers, molten
and fluid, burning brighter and
with intensity so that by dinner
wherever her feet strike in their
dance flames spring forth, torching
the hardwood floors, licking up her skin
until she is entirely aflame.
In her, everything melts and flares
with ease, ardour
and, in the right moments,
ferocity.

On days like these, she is
heat and she is
passion and she is
will and she is
power.
On days like these, she is
Pele.

Megan Paranich is fresh out of high school, going into her first year at University of Alberta in the science faculty. Edgar Allan Poe was the first poet she ever read, unless you count Shel Silverstein. Yoga, cinnamon and shooting stars are some of her favourite things. This Megan’s first publication.

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