In spring 2011, a burial was unearthed, of a male interred as a female, and was promptly billed by the press as ‘WTF? First Gay Caveman!’. In all likelihood the person was transgendered, accepted, even revered as in so many ancestral cultures.
The 1968 Prague Spring was a period of rapid political liberalisation . . .
Five thousand years, layering
this on that, of change on chance
to be dug, this day, these
crouched bones face – respected
male bones placed, inflected
by pots, not knives – east
away from warrior west, in the
suburbs of Prague-to-be: a woman
who is not a man, for
five thousand years, in which
we have learned to write with
fast fingers, blog and fear.
One grave, one loved person, and
five thousand years – from clay tablet
to wired world – in a waste of words.
Not gay. No cave. No vestments.
Just acceptance lost this spring,
in Prague, pressed, and buried.
2012 © Andie Davidson
Published in Realisations.
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