Song

O when I was a dirty little virgin

I'd sit and pick my scabby knees
and dream about some man of thirty
and doing nothing did what I pleased.

A woman gets and is begotten on,
have and receive is feminine for live.
I knew it, I knew it even then:
what after all did I have to give?

A flowing cup, a horn of plenty

fulfilled with more than she can hold,
but the milk and honey will be emptied,
emptied out, as she grows old.

More inward than sex or even womb,
inmost in a woman is the girl intact,
the dirty little virgin who sits and dreams
and has nothing to do with fact.

~Ursula Le Guin, Finding my Elegy

Painting by Elisabeth Slettnes