Medusa's Wound

She thought it had healed 

When she  had been carved onto stones

Or had it? Can a stone capture a woman’s tears?

What a grotesque image they’d carved

 She’d felt alienated from herself.

She pondered over her wounds 

That healed in the inky parchment of nights.

But the each passing day gouged 

A deeper wound into her all seeing eyes.

For centuries she’d borne injury 

When Poisdon ravaged her

Was it Athena’s curse?

Or simply a myth invented by 

Perseus who beheaded her,

Leaving blotches of blood 

To soak an earth that heaved.

Now, that she woke up from slumber

She couldn’t bear the earth heaving,

Nature crippled

Beyond repair.

Her voice couldn’t find words

From aeons she’d stood silent 

Listening to the echoing laughter of men

 That froze her insides.

She wondered if men dreaded her.

How their sly tales had chained her in a myth!

Was it her laughter that silenced man

Or vice-versa?  

The omnipotent eye 

Wouldn’t be biased:

Perchance her story’d be rewritten,

Medusa would then break 

The misogynist shackles that fettered her stride.

She’d seize the pen to rewrite 

A history, written by men,

Whose pen sought power

To shape all

That was not masculine.

© Mumtaz N Khorakiwala

18-1-2021

Picture courtesy: Dailyartmagazine

Greek mythology is filled with characters like Medusa the Gorgon, a mythological character dreaded by men. According to Hesoid’s Theogony  or Ovid’s Metamorphosis if men  looked at her they froze. An alternative interpretation posits that her beauty mesmerised not pertrified men.

A parallel tale states that she was a beautiful maiden ravaged by Poisdon and Athena sought revenge by transforming Medusa into a monstrous woman with snakes as locks who had the power to turn men into statues.

Medusa along with her sisters Euryale and Sthenno stand out as grotesque,