Underworld (after Robert Macfarlane)
Ocean eyes
And rocks that tell us
Of the secrets of the times
Our movies
And memories
From when we were a part of
Something simpler
Fossilized intentions
Carry our history to
Be left uncovered
While glacial ice
Recedes back like
The hair line of
My lover
Your brother
His father
Ancient bubbles that
Sparkle and shine
Encapsulating
Air from other worlds
And other times
Underwater
Underworld
Lost in deep time until
They become ours
To uncover
To glimpse into our past
Geologically
No more
Days
Months
Or years
No yesterdays
Or tomorrows
No time to worry about
Self-actualization
What’s for dinner?
How’s your mother?
Or
I can’t believe this happened
Rocks that move like
Breadcrumbs, slowly
Tracing and map making
Species that have come and gone
Darwin’s tree unearthed
Billion-year-old boulder
Brother
You’ve come so far and now
The sea ice
Feeds all
That will drink
Vegetation
Vegetable
Landmark
Boulder
Ocean eyes
And rocks that tell us
Of memories
Passing Time
The horizon echoes the passing time
The inner voice you’ve heard
The eternal voice that slumbers so loudly
Until you tame it
So a sunrise can be just that
No memories
No feelings
It is
And always was
Happened for you
Not for you
Or anyone you love
Or hate
Or are indifferent to
It happened for the man
Who first made fire
And his multiple lovers
Carnal sweat
And warm skin
And eternal shows
Come and come again
Like the breath that keeps on breathing
As automatic as the sun’s departure
Jealousy (in English)
Jealousy is akin to swallowing clumps
And spoonful’s of dirt
It’s hard to swallow
And it gets so very stuck in your throat
Right above your heart
A ball of clay
Cookies for your road trip
With Cyrillic alphabet bubbles bursting
Out the windows
My dirty grin filled with glacial dust
Toothpicks and floss
Won’t pick it clean
It’s hurts but I chose the words that manifested my mud pie
Jealousy
A token from childhood hands
Old plates mucked with mud
A desert for the lonesome with dark fingernails
Painfully, utensils apathetically pry
No use in pretending to see
Airplanes
Playfully meeting my sediment-filled pie hole.
Heron’s Flap
I said you better come home
Did you dance with…
Your heart open?
Did it hurt like hell to soar?
Oh I was listening
So softly
So quietly
As my heart began to pour
And to pound
In like the troubled winds
Fast and all four
Came up under the heron’s flap
Woosh
From above
Did he fly with listening ears?
With his beautiful mask?
Did it hurt like hell to hear the truth from his tongue?
Collapse
On Depression
Heart strings pull in all directions
A heavy weight
Pulsing and pulling
Pushing and playing
I know this feeling
I hear this heart
She grows
And she yells
Tugs and pulls
Will someone please
Listen
To the sounds
Coming out of my chest
As I blink
And drift
And pulse
And push
My eyelids
Closed
Hidden secrets in my hair
The negative growth must be hiding in my hair
It whispers dark
Sad
Strange
Things
Stealthily in my
Ear
Bones
I will love the skin
That surrounds my bones
And smile to my reflection
As I pass by the mannequin
My skin has holes
Where it breathes
In the country air/the city
It is alive as it holds
Me together
Tight
Under a blanket with my
Warm blooded body/my lover
We smile at each other with
Gum, teeth and hair
Eyelashes, soft cheeks
And ambitious hands
I will love the legs that take me there
They are built strong and proud
And make me run, jump and dance
I will love the face I have
Because it’s the only one I get
It’s beautiful and strange
And I get lost in
My own eyes as I ponder
The colors inside
Green, hazel, yellow
I have my sisters’ eyes
A slight fleck of my
Mothers
The soft and subtle greens and browns of my father
I will love the skin
That surrounds my bones
It is like no other
A cacophony of dna and carbon
That allows me to rest
And peacefully ponder
I will love the skin that surrounds my bones
Will I talk quietly into tall grasses?
Will I talk quietly into tall grasses?
Tell the milkweed to let her seed fly?
Tell the sumac to start changin’ colors
To the goldenrod, I love you, but the season is over?
To the flat top aster, your lovely but summer’s gone
I saw you in the boreal land–in Ottawa
Where bold cliff faces emerge
Deciduous trees stand proud
Mothers and fathers, proud
Sons and daughters, proud
Making their way to our favorite warmth (the sun)
French road signs make me wonder
As I eye the yellow sunny fields
Goldenrod, she moves effortlessly in the wind
Will I talk quietly into dancing fields?
Tell the wild carrots, your lovely but the season’s been over
My voice like the wind carries seeds
Gracefully, slowly, gently
In small thoughts I wonder
Will I talk quietly into tall grasses?
I believe the trees are listening
I believe the trees are listening
As they sway through the air
Knocking elbows with their brothers
Like I wouldn’t know or care
I see the leaves are glowing
As the sun permeates and shows
The beauty of their structure
Like I wouldn’t notice
I feel the seasons changing
As I take in the cool air
A feeling I remember
One I can hear
The leaves below my boots
The knit layer wool under my puffy coat
A cool blue sky to welcome
Me warmly and wildly as the sun
Shines brightly in my eyes
The lashes protect me
A sun flare
I believe the trees are listening
