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The Dance
for Polly
Deep in the blood is a dance.
In walrus, goldfinch,
snake, elephant, deer, trout....
Even through the sap of oak and firefly
courses a will to follow
the beat of ancestral joys.
Residue of praise,
pulsing surrender to life,
twitch of eternal rhythm:
the God-squirm....
To dance this dance is to show yourself
clumsy,
naked,
clinging,
bound by earth's music,
drawn down through drumming volcanoes
to where blind waters race their echoes
through caves that turn
to flowing stone
and rock like the sea.
Now with your sister snails,
cows, geese, manatee,
flex your holy body.
Bend and jolt with Gaia's grace.
Heave your bulk till
it ripples with a sinuous serenity
and you
gasp in
earth's throb.
The Caryatid: Elena
Elena began as all that is beautiful in woman.
Her curves matched the dune-slopes, snow-heaps,
the slow flow of the river engorged.
Full-fleshed and fair,
she shone with the light of bliss.
They came like moths chasing her light.
She welcomed them.
When they tried to steal the light, she ran.
They grabbed her,
pinched her, ripped her veil of innocence,
spilled the shy perfect beauty.
Waking to peril,
she sloughed her pale skin and fled
underground to the dark,
borrowing all the colors of earth
to dim her glow.
Flayed naked, snake-smooth and hard,
her bluish-purple, blood colors exposed,
she burrowed deep into the soil
to wait for walnut's sprout
to ride back to the light.
Uncovering her in this log
revealed the wounds,
the age-old bruises, paths of
blood flooding into places
it doesn't belong.
She is purple and maroon,
splotches of wine poured on blue clay,
her whole lithe body turned vulval hues,
pain and passion
married for life.
Lena’s Escape
I opened this tree too late.
The nymph is gone.
She's disembarked,
vacated, vamoosed,
fled to parts unknown
dressed in her habit of fear.
Only an outline remains
tethered within these walls of wood
knotted so tightly
no breast can swell.
Priestess of the Mother,
she saw her mother and her sisters torn
limb from limb,
before she herself
was made small,
her whole life dismembered.
I do not know how
she gathered up the pieces
brought them to this tree,
this room to hold her pain and healing.
Here in the peace of darkness,
she wept.
For blind generations, she wept,
her tears streaming through countless springs,
staining the lignum dark.
Now she has slipped out of
the slivery coat
of ten thousand years
woven from the legacies of mother trees
immemorial
leaving only
this space where spirit hid,
this crouching absence
where pain hardened into fear.
This is the fossil
which hugged her soul,
was womb to her deliverance.
Come, sit in her place.
Listen to the mothers...
Sing!
Hymn to Her: The Rejoicing i.
Who is she
who lies folded
like a petal between pages of rain
and drought
waiting for my chisel to find her out?
The man who felled this elm
tried to save what was best
of her.
He could not save her head,
her arms,
or legs.
He sliced her womb in two.
But then he brought her,
clothed in bark,
to me.
Pressing face to wood,
smooth and pale,
I breathe deep and
my head thickens
with the fog of tree breath--
sweet magic spice.
My mallet drives the gouge
that breaks the spell
that holds her flesh.
Again
and again
and again I strike
deep into the fragrant wood
seeking her well-guarded pith.
Where has this tree steeped to
distill that sugary stinging essence?
>From what loam sucked
a flavor unknown to stone?
Tools chew away
her fibrous armor and
she climbs from between the lines
spun round and round this trunk,
the bundling of years
bound with dark thread.
The golden rings
swell and shrink
as she takes breath.
She is no mortal,
but high-breasted,
supple as a snake,
mothered by earth not woman.
The circles stretch to ride her contours
like a river rides the land.
I plow this field,
raising grain
golden from her furrows,
until
in full glory
she turns to me
and I anoint her with
oil.
Singing Her praises,
I harvest the gift of grace.
ii.
Once she ate
what I exhale;
Birds in her eyes,
squirrels in her arms,
roaring with storm,
offering leaves like prayers
to the sun and moon.
But now--
listen!--
a rag of wind
caught between slivers
whispers ...
or is it a sigh?
To understand,
you must give her your hand.
Now touch.
Stroke the sleek, rippling story
of her seasons unsung.
Feel the glad grace
at your fingertips...
October Morning
The days of dark rain have lowered the veil of leaves.
The view expands; I grow smaller
for the winter vigil.
The poplars leave yellow footprints
along the path.
The maple
bleeds a trail to spring.
Maple Seeds
Maple copters twirl down.
I pick one up where the spinning stops
and rip it open
looking for muscles or motors or dancing worms.
I find instead a bright green seed
and pierce it with my thumbnail which the moist seed holds tight.
Now it will never sprout,
but I am filled with a curious fluttering. |