Bathing Beauties

Another link to my multicultural heritage that I am intermittently fascinated with...It seems to appear out of nowhere. The adoration of a Russian Mother icon or a sudden lust for royal Russian drama stories from the past. Endless days of looking through Culinaria Russia. And then I am entranced, looking for the thread that connects me.

Kupala

I named it 'the blood calling' when I was sixteen and looking for my birth father.

The illustration I found on the Pinterest page of Andrea Ferrante   "In Slavonic neo-paganism, Kupała is the goddess of herbs, sorcery, sex, and midsummer. She is also the Water Mother, associated with trees, herbs, and flowers"  

More about this particular myth/story from Gods & Godesses and here a bit about how they celebrate in the Ukraine.

From Where?

A door handle
to open, 
the patiently waiting dzezva behind glass.
How often it bekons
the reflection,
mother's cheek & father's
bone,
eye in diffused light
or hair.
 Iron gates
closed in
or maybe safe.
Sometimes I notice,
others not.
Sometimes the blood calls
others.