Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman

it has taken the longest time
crawling my way back here
feet dragging slug trails
through dry grass and leaf,
but i am here now
cupped hands to thirsty lips
cool water finding flow
down chin and neck
and wrist
and i hold this holy water
pooled behind my teeth
make my tongue a living raft
to carry me on.
to carry on.

Obstacles

if i am the word
that spoke this world
into being
unsay me now.
let me fall
unformed into silence.

unspeak the shapes
of palate and tooth
that hold me unthinking,
thought into matter,
until i have lived a silence
no less than the stars
who fall soundless
and arcing with light.

if i am the word
that speaks this world
into being
let me be voiced
spoken from silence
with bones and tongue
new formed to the shape
of earth and root and stone
the taste of love
on my lips.

Risk

in april the berg winds blow
hot from northern deserts
carrying sage brush
and buchu breath
it sweeps the forest clean
drying off the old wood
shriveling gentle tendrils
too late to reach for light.
preparing the pulsing forest
for the teeth of winter cold.

and i, oblivious
to gold leaf warnings,
have let my heart run wild
entangled with green gush growth
and soft translucent blooms.
at night in sleep i hear that windsong
a two note of bitterbos
and the bigness of sky
screeching down the mountain
singeing over hills
and shift-sand dunes
to cool old desert voices
in the waiting southern sea.

in autumn the bergwind blows
hot dry from faraway deserts
sweeping through my tangled spaces
and deep leaf litter of words unsaid
preparing me for season’s turn
and the quiet of the trees.

it is heartwood that lives the winter
and new buds that make the spring.

you might think
you know me
know my woman’s heart
as if it is owned
mapped and marked
for the claiming
but there are places in my being –
wild unimagined places
that even i
take my shoes off
to visit.

Identity

did you think truth
would not out
as truth does.
did you think this path of the heart
was all skipping through the forest
among the golden leaves of autumn
while butterflies weave light
among the trees.
did you think you would not be asked
to walk this path at night
among your shadows and your fears
and still be at the table in the morning
sipping tea
while quietly scraping dirt
and blood of beasts you have battled
from your nails beneath your shawl.
did you think
your heart would open
to morning light and birdsong
without tearing flesh
just a little.

it is our selves
that we lie to
when we turn away
from truth.

there was a time in the world
when we heaved with
the breath of the living,
when rivers rushed
deep in our veins
and our quickening pulse
crashed the high tide shore.

a time when sleep was for dreams
that grew the forest, sang the stars
not a stale grey death of unawake.
forgetting was impossible
because each breath
remembered us.

there is time in this world
to breathe a new remembering
re-form ourselves
of sinew synapse and light
to dance at the edge of the infinite
to live the world anew.

Perspective

alone in the sky
wind singing through my toes
i drift a thousand summers
heart open to your door.

with wings and talons
and bristle haired dew paws
i come

with scales and wattles
and thin rubbed places
in fur as soft as night
i come

in skin translucent
as watery moon paths
on cold ache feet
i come to your door.

and every time you invite me in
say welcome back daughter
come sit your flesh hung bones
down among my being
rest awhile
and if this sitting
carves your soul
into shapes
we have not yet sung
or the scales fall
like tears in the rain
and crumple
and reform and reform
let yourself fall
let yourself be carved
to the need of the world
there is none here but me
to bare witness.

Witness

if these stones could talk
they would speak of how we came here –
shaped ourselves boneless
of the salt ocean breath
and cool flame light
of surface shifting water.
long days we drifted so,
forming and formless
gathering light and shape
tasting the spice rush
of embodied form
to dissolve again
scattering the scent of sea roses on the wind
finding voice to sing the oceans birth
until our light turned to matter
and tides bound our form.
some days on misty mornings
when the sea breath hangs
heavy with salt – we come
boundless across the cliffs
spilling formless
through forest trees
hear us
we are singing still.

i did not see them coming
a hundred geese
scraping the hill top
filling the world
with flight
and perhaps
i breathed their flying
their dark heavy shapes
heading home
beyond the trees
until again
i was alone
with nothing
but the sound
of their wings
between myself
and the evening star.

Blogging the Senses

i breathe into this rain
that demands to be danced.
rain that aches for the taste of my skin
arms outstretched
as much as my skin leaf-aches
to be touched –
to speak all the names of rain
light fingered on chest
and shoulders and face.
i follow my feet
toe soft and wet leaf adorned
heart stretched and thrumming
like a roof in the rain
pause to see tight bud march lilies
lift their snake head stems
in soft soil
long waiting
for rain.