Bastet

She walks like a secret
through pillars of sun-warmed stone,
gold ringing softly at her wrists
like distant bells calling something ancient
back into the bones of the world.

Her eyes are not gentle.
They are knowing.
Green as things that grow in the dark,
bright as the edge of a blade
hidden beneath silk.

She is the pause in the house at midnight,
the watcher on the wall,
the soft-foot guardian
who hears what we do not hear,
who sees what we try not to see.

Daughter of the sun,
but she prefers the hour of lamps and shadows,
where women whisper truths
into cups of wine and honey,
where laughter is a kind of magic,
where survival is an art form.

She is warmth.
She is teeth.
She is perfume and blood and music.
She is the hand that soothes the child
and the hand that does not tremble
when it must defend.

Do not mistake her softness
for surrender.

She is a hearth that burns low and constant.
She is a blade wrapped in velvet.
She is the goddess who comes quietly,
sits beside you without speaking,
and teaches you
how to belong to yourself again.