when dark mother birthed us from the star trampled sky – nursed us by moonlight tender as silvered ocean swell and watched us grow saw our long songs trailing tendril from the beginning of time shaping and forming as we came
taught us to sing holy holy is the night because she knew and she knew this light that shines bright in the dark of all that is and she knew she knew what was being built and knew time would come when we should hide.
quiet paths silent greetings – hiding plain in plain sight herb woman, green woman green growing good wife mid wife mid life old mud and blood earth unseen light on night paths with quiet quiet lest this false making rob the world of light
torch them burn them drown them until the light goes out.
but dark mother knows as dark mother does and quiet as candles she has nurtured this light sung low owl on gibbous nights whispered the mountains at dawn and waited and watched watched and waited for the world to want to be the light that is waited until it was time to burn this old house of shadow beings down.
now in songs as clear as raven flight she sings saplings into trees calls the light of silent ways, the hidden, the hiding and the lost names us all for the light we always were.
calls us now to be here be present birth this light into the new world waiting.
For Sherry at Earthweal’s weekly challenge: Conciousness raising during the Apocalypse
corona has left me slow to think, slow to act slow to write – a 50kg bag of grain three times the weight is was before and all the while the planet is hurtling towards our own inevitability so much faster than most of us can breathe through
and francesca the goat labours through the bright sky night second of september and perfectly on time and i wait to the sound of frog song and a silence that hums my ears for the first inhale breath and bleat cry affirmation of life tender as the blossom that leans bare branch, unfurling fragile petals despite or because of what is –
until impatient 5am under the star crazed sky i walk out to the goat house. first toad of the season, lean as winter, crosses the path up ahead my breath billows dew bright in the torch beam and slowly slowly it is spring
long chewing a quiet breakfast francesca the goat raises her head at my presence. tomorrow she says, or tomorrow’s tomorrow – there is still time in the world for slow beginnings
i waited a while in the goathouse watched the steady rise and fall of her abdomen, the sound of their chewing shaping darkness into day until the black rooster broke the spell with his incessant crowing.
back in the house the kettle metal clicks its warming on the flame – fingers wrap around warm cups and through the windows the sky pinks and greys
there time in the world for slow healing slow beginnings quiet endings still time
for Brendan at Earthweal’s weeky challenge: SLOWNESS
there are wheels so much bigger than this cog and turning daily grind and somnambulant reel – this moon swell ocean gyre that counts the seasons as breaths – this march of constellations across the sky
we live we die we live we die yet we panic and push against our immortality pretending only the old, frail or foreign are mortal, when this life truly is a moment of wonder or horror in a side tent at a fair and as the curtain draws back there it is, the sum total of human endeavour illuminated in this life of where we are at in all its wondrous horror and breathtaking beauty too much too much to take it all in and as the curtain starts to fall
we reach out try to catch it hold it open a moment longer with a wait i am not done yet i think i almost understand what we have undone, but there is no waiting no holding back and fall it must
and in the breath close darkness that follows our hand finds a face a voice a hand we love and pull them out the tent to a gape of stars wheeling above and the lights and sound of the universe that is
and in a voice that has been you since before and before you whisper to the sky and the love still warm in your hand let’s do it again.
For Brendan at Earthweal’s weekly challenge: BIG WHEELS TURNING
truth is the sun rose this morning, splattering of light low and cold – birds on high branches moving and feeding to stay warm alive shaking water from the trees while cold feet in thick socks and gumboots wade the night rain become mud. i know that inside a warm fire waits and tea always tea.
truth is, arm down a burrow in soft wrapped fur, i find five new born rabbit kits naked and blind yipping at the cold of my touch. they know as much of tomorrow as i which to be honest is nothing at all
truth is the world is so much bigger than we can remember all at once without losing the parts of ourselves that re-member here. and of course we wanted flight so we have and had it and wanted and wanted and now we ache and we break with all that we are losing rage with the fires that burn and melt, but we are of no use to this world scorched by our impotent rage, more broken than that we hope to mend, more lost than that we stand to lose.
truth is my youngest daughter has covid, and probably myself and oldest daughter too – six days in and perhaps too soon to write we are fine we are fine, (though really we are) because we know no more than those rabbits down the burrow naked and blind vulnerable while blissfully asleep.
truth is yesterday new moon we planted first seeds of the season all three of us outside under a fast changing sky – black soil, small pots and names like prayers on stick labels tomato and marrow, cornflower and bean.
truth is the sun that rose after rain that fell through the night and watered the seeds that were planted were planted were planted
For Brendan at earthweal’s weekly challenge: TRUTH IN A WORLD ON FIRE
end of july deep winter cold and mountains capped with snow. first day out to clear the beds, spread compost like a blanket thick black and warm – new moon in august we will plant the summer seeds.
end of july deep winter cold out in the garden to prepare the beds – trellis the peas while first cuckoos, emerald green and tail flicking, call from the bare branched searsia brilliant against the ice blue sky iridescent feathers in winter sun.
deep in july snow cold in the mornings francesca full pregnant and shaggy with curls watches while we build new lambing stalls pile them soft with eragrostis – she knows the waiting for the turning of the year and the spring she holds in her belly.
end of july deep winter cold and mountains capped with snow – we sit by the fire drink endless cups of tea speak the world way into the night while outside the windows winter howled and hissed
deep in july late winter cold first blossoms open like stars on a cloudless night points of light on the bare winter trees. and now we wait warming seeds in our hands with the breath of our living, wait for the turning of the year so we may sow what light has lived through the long dark of winter and reap what we sow in the warming days to come.
first light frost cold and unseen first blossom unfurls almond branch in palest pink – crystalline translucence singing soft praise to quiet winter sun and the turning of the year.
some mornings you wake to find the apocalypse is on your doorstep (even though the country is big and your doorstep is 1000km away)
and who unleashed the four fucking horsemen who summoned their conquest, disease and war and who even knows what the fourth one was – death? death was with us all along – holy as the night returning our bodies to the body of the earth holy holy as the night. perhaps we should ask the horses if they were willing to ride into war.
and the looters defaced chapel and temple, the sanctum of the pious and the worthy, scattering the shattered glass on the marble walkways of the righteous. because the world will end when you defile our malls – take what you cannot afford – what this economy has deemed you unworthy of.
and when the smoke cleared and the plastic packaging tumbled lonely ghost in the semi dark of destruction and the bodies were found – trampled and crushed, burned and shot in the fervour of desperation.
when the smoke cleared and the bodies were found lost – sacrificed to the cold gods of capitalism who rewards the devout and the privileged with the blood of the living, the sweat and small joys of those they deemed unworthy. and we counted the damage in rands.
when the smoke cleared, the bodies were buried in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost of every woman burned, trampled and stepped on in the bloody march of christianity and its prodigal son capitalism, who turned the sacred earth to dirt and renamed the living as resources.
first light frost cold and unseen first blossom unfurls almond branch in palest pink – crystalline translucence singing soft praise to quiet winter sun and the turning of the year.
some mornings you wake to find the world has turned irrevocably changed while birds sing the day.
first blossom
For Brendan at Earthweal’s weekly challenge: A poetry that does not compromise. ( The Anthropocene Hymnal)
small and round i found it where i walked, a lichen twined nest of the batis storm blown
holding the perfect circle nesting within my hands, consumed by the miracle of forest oblivious.
light falling with leaves between leaves revealed the old mare’s white mane spiraled around with grasses and seed down and there, woven tight and neat a yellow thread plucked from the flag we hoisted high on the bean pole to watch the wind blow.
in amongst the spider silk, holding moss to lichen and grass, in bright impossible knot work was hair, human – unmistakably long and dark and mine. the gift was both a nest and a knowing of slow entanglement,
never more can i be a mere observer of this forest or stand separate and alone in awe of its beauty for today and a while now our living is woven inextricably into tree.
1. the world deconstructs us takes us apart until bone fragment and skin smear – we are identifiable as human alone, but our humanity exists in the world we have torn ourselves from. the one where a phalange in a cave in siberia is not enough to tell the fern soaked story of lives lived in tree shadow, tell the stories between blood and water breath birth and death that prowls just beyond the light of fire the warmth of touch and stench of living close.
and yet and yet we are this world that deconstructs and cleanses us of our humanity; this and everything we were before, the ghosts of our living past doing a merry bone dance alongside our daily shuffle from bed to work to bed.
2. alone in a room lights dim curtains drawn air-conditioner breathing comfortably in perpetual nowhere time. alone in a room a child a man a human sits amongst the plastic debris and food waste of their living controls resting in limp hands while the room staggers pauses flashes blue with a repeat message on the screen game over game over game over
3. alone in the dark by torchlight my daughter and i check the rabbit house for damage. woken 2am by a voice that must have been the soundtrack for every monster movie ever made and who knew they even made that sound until we caught them teeth bared in a beam of light. but now is dark and chill as we cautiously reach into the too quiet night – trying to hear if they have gone, honey badger mid-small and bumbling cute at a distance, but crazy strong and ferocious enough to take on a pride of lions if need be.
they are not messy hunters no blood – clean neck break, prey carried off into the night. silence.
and hard as it is to tally these midnight losses we, the rabbits, the humans, the badger, the chickens the goats, the genet, the caracal the cats, the owl, the sunbird, the moth – we live by this forest – live by the life growing green verdant on this forest edge.
much as we live by the world and think there is no balance and check think that this world of glass bubbles and steel does not have to obey the laws of the earth that it is – are surprised when balance looks like a dust storm, a heatwave a virus.
and there is nothing to be taken personally there is no person, big picture, separate or alone the only single entity on the planet is the planet itself and even then it is unlikely she lives untethered and alone in the aching darkness of forever.
4. breakfast was toast. sourdough from the market farm butter poached eggs from our hens, black australorps large and friendly feathers dark as night shadows offering them some protection on the forests edge, fiendishly smart at break out and break in plans, competing with us for garden greens which today for breakfast are piled high on the poached eggs. coriander and basil, red mustard , new zealand spinach, some late chillies and garlic all chopped and doused in olive oil. a midwinter mid-morning feast.
after years of this there is no denying that our bones are built of the soil of this place – our blood the tree sap that rises in spring.
5. we have town clothes well not really, but sort of maybe, just shoes that don’t tramp goat shit on the hallowed marble floors of the local mall, shawls that don’t traipse the forest in our hems as we walk, pockets that don’t rustle a handful of oathay and a few clinking nails amid the hush of white noise and unlight of extended hour shopping where we walk among many masked and alone.
6. long crested eagle waited roadside post its crest flapping inelegantly in the breeze as we made our way up the hill down the road to our home – we stopped the car dirt road quiet and watched as she watched. us. until enough of the laughter, and the foppish crest flapping, we took to the sky lighthearted.
7. again a prediction of night gales again a fire risk warning today 8 july 21 500 new cases in the last 24 hours. it is hard to hold the balance, hard not to surrender to the fear.
8. there is no prayer i can speak for this time – there are no words i can shape into winged beasts of hope that may fly the forgotten skies of tomorrow and tomorrow, seven generations down. i can only speak to this darkness that knows the dawn will come. and know that we are, every bark leafed, clawed and slippery skinned one of us, that we are the hope of our ancestors who lived long enough to hope.
For Brendan at Earthweal’s weekly challenge: Interdepence Day
two nights of wind storms have blown my fearless cover
this morning the light moves quiet as a snake and golden across the hills – illuminates tree by standing tree
for now the wind has settled, silent and stripped bare the world wakes – my feet crunch brittle in the fallen leaves picking a way between dropped branches
small birds are counting their living, calling to each other high and sweet from the new swept trees.
there is no hiding under a big storm sky we hunker down we wait wakeful alert we pray.
in this slow morning sun i check on the seedlings tend the peas take note of what still stands what still holds despite it all.
vegetable garden damp seeps the hems of my skirt the taste of gratitude like new raspberry on my tongue
high against the clouds ibis still fly their prayer runes across the sky
where our words have failed the earth still speaks us.
For Sherry at earthweal’s weekly challenge: A PRAYER FOR HARD TIMES.
