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unmapping our future
if i say
i love
and it was not predicted
by an algorithm,
is it really love
or an act of resistance.
i don’t want to be mapped,
charted, measured.i want to say lost
and taste that word
like salt from another ocean.
i want to loose myself
again and again to this
six note feather song
that falls from the tree
with late light that pools
amongst root and leaf
to spill over skin
new lined with paths
made by feet
finding their way.5 march 2020
Linking to Earthweal’s open link weekend #70.
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/21/earthweal-open-link-weekend-70/
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waterline
low soft their voices came
on white wings across the water
reflecting sky
reflecting waterand we wanted to join them
across that still forever –
touch again their shining faces,
walk fearless on the reflecting sea.
but our earthbound bodies
sang kin-songs to the rock spilled shore –
took form from the forest that named us
trading our wings for words
and the knowing and forgetting that brings.some mornings water’s edge
we hear them calling still
low soft voices
like white wings across the water –
and we lean towards that calling
toes touching that rippling forever
and we cast our words in paper boats
towards that distant shore.
Photo by Tamarisk-Ray Glogauer For Eathweal’s weekly challenge: Voyage to the Otherworld
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/17/earthweal-weekly-challenge-voyage-to-the-otherworld/
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not here: travels in the otherworld
drove to the city and back
six hours each way
returning the art student
to the university she evacuated
for fire four weeks ago –
some buildings still charred stone exterior,
roadside trees holding helpless charcoal hands to the sky
on the slopes of the mountain that runs black seams
up into the high gorges
where nothing but eagle and rock hyrax nest.i slept the night on a riverbank
deep within its leafy suburban heart,
the treeline hiding a seething multitude of sins
but all i could see from my window
was the mountain peak
fading into the crescent moon sky.
i slept dreamless in that place
the endless drone of city and aircon
and push of river at its concrete banks
speaking a voiceless dirge to the night.and slow the day came
warming leaves fallen
damp on the path.we shared a makeshift breakfast
of the previous day’s travel food
fresh season naartjies
and cream cheese from home
on the old stone steps of the university
near the room where she stays.
pied crows drawing slow circles overhead
threading red roofs and stone buildings
to blue sky and burned trees.
the day stretched ahead
full with the sadness of parting.this is the city that bore me
raised me through its seasons and shadows,
though truth be told it is another world to me now
bigger brighter more
its shacks and shanty towns bigger and bigger
strung spider web with electric cables overhead
its relentless gated villas and estates and malls
marching off to other mountains
swallowing kilometres and kilometres
in its suburban daydream.
its five lane highways their own special purgatory.an hour away i climbed those distant mountains
looking back at the city
like a jeweled illusion in morning light –
endless suburbs bathed in soft mist and factory belch,
the bays and small harbours postcard blue
under the flawless sky.steep driving down the other side
the road unravels horizon to horizon
through hills and crop-lands
playing pastoral painting –
dams and ponds brim full of first rain
reflecting the cloud skud sky(and perhaps and maybe
as the fields speed past
and for a moment,
like in summer
when cupped hands to the surface
you look through the reflection
to the world of waterweed beneath,
the fawn stands green clearing
on the edge where the the old tree
reaches over the stone pile
and something twangs
in the place where knowing lives
and a doorway swings
open and shut
and the road draws me
on and on)and all the while
the distance between
stretches
until my heart pulled taut
is played like a drum –
a four beat repeat
like a calling
like an approachingand finally end of day
rounding the pass that opens rockface
to stretch of ocean and estuary and forest
and all the voices that speak me
i retrieve the skin
i left at the shore.For Eathweal’s weekly challenge: Voyage to the Otherworld
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/17/earthweal-weekly-challenge-voyage-to-the-otherworld/
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wellspring
in the moth dark
of time between
nightjar wheels
on silent wings
before first light
breaks the sky
and winter trees
like skeleton leaves
bare witness to
the rising sun. -
fierce love
they say that death
might come
like a thief in the night,
but love knows those paths
through the deep mystery too,
asking nothing of us
but all we are to give,and waking one morning
early summer light
to find my belly stretched taut
marked welt-red and wild
like the skin of a shadow-play beast
rippling with life,
i knew this love would be fierce –
that i could be swallowed,
torn sinew and bone
from what i thought i wasthe animal snuffle-yelp of the newborn
would devour and devour completely
until nothing remained
but that which was always becomingand years later
i would come up for breath,
those marks now long faded
to lightning-strike silver scars,
the girls grown like saplings
reaching for the lightand winter would find me
sitting forest floor,
hands deep buried
against breath bite cold,
heart gulping radiance
that spills through tall trees
until i come undone
unhinged
skinless in the morning,
becoming this place
we always werealways loved.
For Sherry at Earthweal’s weekly challenge – Fierce Love.
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/10/earthweal-weekly-challenge-fierce-love/
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may they walk these valleys again some day
they are small streams now
that cut these deep valleys –
rock slip moist moss
where light can hardly touch
but here shaft
beam drift light
through tall trees and air
hung with water droplets
and spore,
touching bracket or fern leaf
or foot.small streams now
that roar with the rain
tumbling debris,
hanging upriver grass
in the trees with the floodline.small streams that
speak gentle over
rock shelves
still jagged with time.he sought these deep valley streams.
asked if it was unusual,
new resident ecologist
burning bright with the beauty
of all that is,
he asked if it was unusual
to find the tooth of an elephant
in the deep valley small stream
scramble through the undergrowth
until the light changes
below his house –and what could i say
i knew all these years
that they must have lived here –
felt the slow quiet of their being –
the path shaping wonder
of their giant presence
on steep slopes.
hoped beyond the reach of my ears
in the quiet of night
listening for branch crack
or tree fall in the dark.
formed my longing
into grey shadows
in the mist.hoped beyond reason
that the last of them
sometimes walked here still.and i know
i know
this tooth,
gnarled tree root unusual,
bigger than his hand,
is older than the elephant that livedbut like the forest
i smile this knowing, long held
by small streams in deep valleys
and remember the deep rumble hum
of their voices in my bones.
Photo and find by Mish Linking to Earthweal’s open link weekend.
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/07/earthweal-open-link-weekend-68/
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holy
holy is the touch of rain on morning skin
new woken to the mist hung worldholy is the sunbird, iridescent voice
in the murmuring trees.holy is the dew hung leaf
offering green prayers
to the morning.holy is the mud
slip wet and dark with life,
warm with the season’s turning.holy is the song
shared breath on our lips
shaping worlds.holy is the goat
dreaming silk curls for spinning
from the quiet shade of trees.holy is the caracal
twilight walker
in the silence between.holy is the wheel
that turns rhythm of foot
and silk curl dreams
into thread enough
to guide us home.holy holy is the song.
For the wounded Healer: Songs of the Earth Shaman at Earthweal
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/03/wounded-healer-songs-of-the-earth-shaman/#comment-1744
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“humans of dust, you are nothing but a story.”- columba
1.
where to begin with this
where to begin story
a lightening breath,
a slow steady knowing,
accepting our surrender,
a what comes comes.2.
and perhaps and perhaps there is a planet b
that living in a new way has created the world anew
because actually and actually this existed all along3.
there are quiet questions
that sing this night into sky,
waking the weary
from the quiet of sleep
beyond fear and hope.4.
it is no simple matter how to face a wave
ocean rush swirling our veins
sand encrusted sun torso squealing the splashes
until thigh deep to a ten year old
the waves charge thunderous
and we need to decide
do we dive through sleek as a seal in the waves
water roar and tumble wash overhead
to emerge head bobbing and breath explosion
in the quiet of the other sidewe could turn and run screaming to stay ahead ,
beaching ourselves back where we began.or do we stand firm – brace ourselves.
throw our luck to the force of the wave
and hope we are not pummelled and fumbled
by sand and water and which way up
or pulled by the undertow
grappling blind at the shifting sand.5.
so when and how and what if
it came to this
this what comes comes
and the letting go into that
and you would think
a small black horse that loved the night
and carved his freedom
in paths through the forest
to show up at my gate in the morning
was no great loss (all things considered)but walking him up the rubber shod ramp
to take his place alongside the little mare,
both of them starting else where anew,
was a final relinquishing of all that holding on.and the sun shone bright on the walk down the hill
my feet too warm in morning chill double socks
and the tears and the tears and lightness of letting go
all tempered by the knowing of what comes comes
and the rhythm of walking it
one foot in front of the other
down the hill to our home.6.
breath now7.
what is left
when our libraries burn
when our books are lost
when our universities fall
to the fires of our time.who are we
when the smoke clears
and our collective words
our archives of knowledge
are nothing but ash on the floor
in a shell built of stone.what knowing is needed
to reshape ourselves
thought by thought
to the living.8.
the sixteen year old has a biology project
a cloth timeline of the story of the earth
from birth until nowpainted full length of the table
and more
a new colour for each period
and the new life forms each broughta thin black line
for each of the mass extinctions
the hows and whys
five so far
and countingand she sings sometimes
while she works
sings with the voice of the knowing
until our bones hum
with the beauty
of all that is lost
all that might still be found.9.
the problem dear seal of the sleek swimming water
is that we have no idea what is beyond the waves.
still clear water, deep sea unknown – another wave
(?)
were we made for these times,
can we swim the deep unknown and live.
is there a further shore
what waits for us
on the other side of these waves.where to begin with this
where to begin story
a lightening breath
a slow steady knowing
accepting our surrender
a what comes comesuntil we find ourselves
swimming the deep
our finned feet
trailing light.10.
and what if what if
we knew in our words
what our bodies always have
that we are this place
this planet this home
that we are a part
of a sum
whose wholeness
our wholeness
is greater
than humanity alone
can strive for.11.
there isn’t time seal
just dive.For Brendan at Earthweal’s Wounded Healer: Songs of the Earth Shaman.
https://earthweal.com/2021/05/03/wounded-healer-songs-of-the-earth-shaman/
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the mountain
some mornings i forget
with the metal of wheelbarrow
leaning cool into the curl
of fingers damp with mash,
the grind of grit in axle
a constant to the step gravel crunch
of road underfoot
buckets shuffling
among the slices of hayand the stamp and breath of horses
waiting down the end of the road,
old now with sharp flanks
and gentle eyes,and it is okay
it is okay –
we bloom
we fade
we bloom againand some mornings
breath comes hard
with weight of bale
or sacks of grain that were
nothing to me
when the girls were young
and i shaped the world
one handed with a child on hip.
and some mornings
breath comes heavy
rushing the empty
spaces they leave behind
when they go.some mornings
i forget there is a mountain
forget to lift my eyes from the road
forget to look above the the crowded hedges
of blue spire plectranthus and cape honeysuckle
wild orange and thick bright with wings
and bird chatter.some mornings i forget
that the earth underfoot
is where the mountain that rises
high peak above green folds began.
that my feet have been turning to stone
that i have been here
woman becoming mountain
all along.
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but there are stars
so late my love
and the day still needs doing
though sun has long slipped the horizon
and only the night jar still sings,but there are stars now
my love
aching with light long held –
come breathe with me
this unravelling sky.
