Sycamore Fig

Sycamore Fig fruiting

I know you by your absence, my adoration,
     your familiarity.
Great tree, Ficus Sycomorus, twenty meters tall,
     twice that in width,
     reaching out your wide expanse to protect us,
     our Ancient Mother.
Asherah! Asherah! I remember you as Goddess,
     nurturing us, fostering all beings,
     and in that life, in that dream,
     You were our altar.
Heart-shaped leaves, a canvas for artists through the ages.
Your abundant fruits!  Flowering year-long,
     they ripen green to yellow to richest red,
     proof of your divinity.
Each fruit-fall, a ton, ripens at Your leisure,
     at all times of the year, as it pleases You.
When You, Asherah, were Goddess at our altar,
     were those thousands of rich red fruits
     all the proof we needed?
At our altars, two thousand years ago and so much more,
     You fed us all, monkeys and humans, elephants and bats.
In Egypt, they painted You everywhere,
     as we suckled at Your holy breasts.
"Destroy their altar, break their images,
     and cut down their Asherim!"
     cried Moses, the teachings of the advancing hoards
     echoing down through the ages.
The good red fruit, Your menstrual blood,
     Your woman-power, Your all-giving grace,
     Your place of honor by the altar
     is now lost to us all.
Oh our Mother! Asherah! Sycamore Fig!
I am there again, singing,
     with my sistrum and my drum,
     dancing with all my people
     to the beat of the tambourine.
Roots wide-spread underground, 
     Your massive canopy overhead,
     I feel You reverberating,
     happy under our feet as we dance.
Oh Asherah, Sycamore Fig! African Queen,
     Queen of Trees, beloved of Egypt,
     adored in the Holy Land,
     in those holiest days before Yahweh and his swordsmen
     set out to destroy You....
You fed us all.
I feel Your wide-splayed roots
     and your luscious wide canopy
     growing holy and happy once more,
     fruits as red as my blood,
     in the ageless and undying altar of my heart.




Annelinde Metzner
January 1, 2020

Asherah

Egyptian mural of Tree Goddess

Beautiful trunk of the Sycamore Fig

Birds enjoying the sacred fig tree