The Woman of Willendorf, by Barbara Carlton

Venus of Willendorf, artist and origin unclear. Found in Austria in 1908, dated approximately 25 000 B.C.E.

The Woman of Willendorf

Her maker knew what he was doing, but that
was a cool 28,000 years ago and now
we have to guess. Stick her footless ankles
in the earth and she becomes the earth, 
and the earth becomes woman. She’ll fit 
in your hand, and yet, so engorged, all 
breasts, body, hips, hair, she is pure
sex, too powerful to hold. Her maker 
revered her, or maybe feared 
the terror of creation, the unknowable 
female, untempered,  
as dangerous as a sow bear. 

More dangerous still, for the future 
of the human animal: imagine the moment 
of her conception, as her maker thinks
a thought no human has ever had before--
I will make a rock into a woman. From cold stone 
I will give birth to an idea.

Barbara Carlton
​
Barbara Carlton is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. She lives in San Diego, California. In her other professional life she is an architect. In her personal life she is the mother of two grown children and the servant of two cats known as the Permanent Toddlers.