Three Women in One

Dreamed 1984/2/5 by Katherine Metcalf Nelson

THREE WOMEN IN ONE Standing in the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, I visit with two high-powered friends who are done up in polish, jewels, and stylish clothes. Overwhelmed by their sophistication, I shrink to a little Alice in Motherland, lying curled up on the left breast of a nursing mother. She is smooth and firm and soft. The turn of her head shows the strength of her neck and the graceful curve of her shoulder as she stretches out her arms east and west. Drifting into her warmth, I am at once a worshiper in an ancient earth shrine, and a small, loving child who is still connected to her mother's breast. Of the three, it's woman stretched out on earth as earth that holds me.

Source: Katherine Metcalf Nelson's Night Fishing, 1997, p.90