What of your altars?
The goddess will always ask, what can you do for you?
What of your altars?
Eager to give when there are rewards,
but what toys have you forgotten,
hidden among your halls where
you used to play.
Do you see him?
Troubled child fast asleep,
dreaming of the men you may come to be,
or of the invisible hand who grips with a fist,
cracked surface where the soul slips through.
Where are you,
in the woods or cradled close to your mother’s breast?
Such a maze under moonlight,
easy for hide and seek,
where shadows swallow and stuff the mouth,
are you the wolf or the succulent treat?
Tend to your house
where a small garden grows,
collect your flowers and love the soil.
A goddess has no need for rolling stones.
I wanted to address, in broad strokes, the male/female dynamic of courtship, where a man’s role is to offer items (e.g., flowers, and dates) and give himself to the woman (i.e, going ‘above and beyond’ to impress) with the explicit purpose of making her say ‘yes.’ In this particular form of courtship, it can pervert itself and become more like a transaction: if I do this, then you give me that. Throughout this ritual, there’s no question if the man should be pursuing the woman. In my opinion, it makes sense for us to ensure we are our best selves before seeking a relationship (this involves trying to understand our faults and insecurities first). However, men can be allowed to pursue blindly — whether they’re ready for a relationship or not — while it is up to the woman to decide if he is ‘good or bad’ (this plays into the sexist stereotype of women as being ‘picky’). This dynamic isn’t limited to only male/female relationships too, but I use these pronouns because I can’t speak authentically to those other experiences.
There can also be risks in idealizing a person. By doing so, one can end up giving too much of themselves away recklessly.
For the poem, the woman is referred to as a goddess (in two senses of the word: because that’s how he sees her; and as a goddess in the ‘true’ sense, someone who has catered to themselves first before reaching out to others).
Instead of asking “what can I do for you,” she replies “what can you do for you?” This is meant to highlight self-care, asking if there is anything you can do for yourself first before reaching out to another. It’s not meant as an insult, but as a genuine question we’re rarely asked.
“Eager to give when there are rewards” illustrates how easy it can be to give things away, as long as there’s a benefit (in this case, it’s getting the woman to say yes).
“What of your altars?” speaks to the body as a temple, that everyone is their own god or goddess, and if we are our own gods then that implies you are both the worshiper and the worshiped. The question is also phrased to make you consider the state of your ‘altar,’ is it in good health?
“What toys have you forgotten hidden among your halls” refers to our youth, when we were children at play, unshaped, for the most part, from social norms and gender roles. “Toys” equates to the offering you might give yourself (because you are your own worshiper). In the poem, the offering closely resembles a toy, something that brought you joy. So, it’s essentially saying, you already have wonderful gifts within yourself (the lost toys), but you may have forgotten them along the way. Are the gifts you are giving of any value, if you didn’t appreciate — and have already forgotten —the value of your own gifts?
“Dreaming of the men you may come to be”: here, the little boy, who represents the unshaped ‘you,’ is thinking about all the different ways he can grow up. “The invisible hand” becomes the social and cultural forces that shape our views of what it means to be a man, illustrated by the “grips with a fist.” This normalized aggression can easily influence the boy as he gets older (“where the soul slips through”).
“In the woods or cradled close to your mother’s breast”: this is nature (woods) versus nurture (mother), and it’s asking which shapes you the most. There is no easy answer, so this question of identity becomes a “maze under moonlight.” Confusing and hard to navigate.
(note: Nurture doesn’t have to be strictly linked to the mother, but for the sake of juxtaposing male/female, I chose to keep it).
You’re trying to find that authentic version of you within this maze. So in this game of hide and seek, it’s your “true self” who is hiding, “where shadows swallow and stuff the mouth,” implying that they are hard to find and cannot speak. It’s also playing with the idea that men may not be encouraged to speak out on their emotions, so that part of themselves (the emotional side) is silenced.
“Are you the wolf or the succulent treat?” is asking the person, do they see themselves as the one seeking or the one hiding (the authentic self)?
The last lines refer back to “what of your altars?”, in this case your body/self is a house where “a small garden grows,” but gardens require care. A person should tend to their garden and collect the flowers (in contrast to someone buying flowers they don’t own). And they should learn to love the soil, which is really another way of loving yourself, because the soil/soul allows growth, and change to happen.
“A goddess has no need for rolling stones”: they don’t have a need for men who are disconnected from their gardens, unaware of who they truly are yet. Stones are used to break things. They are singular, and crush whatever gets in their way. The opposite of flowers. And if one is to expand their world to include another, there has to be a vulnerability and honesty that is difficult to achieve without taking a look inside first.
Of course this isn’t meant to cast all men as stones, but to highlight that the nature of this type of courtship can perpetuate and/or reinforce these types of behaviors.
