wilding prayer

lauds

and always and again
this light comes
distils into bird song
calls us from sleep
sings our awakening

prime

and perhaps
we never needed
to overthink this
being here –
perhaps all we ever know,
all we ever needed to know
is that we are here-now
women becoming
lichen becoming tree-light
bushbuck forest becoming morning
becoming women

terce

sunflowers
turn their bright sky faces
to look to the earth
to the rich dark soil
the unfathomable life of roots
and microbe
and worm

sext

you have to give yourself to it
completely, until you are boneless
in the river – a body of water
lapping with the windblown waves

the only way to stay afloat
is to give yourself to the river
completely, to be buoyed by
saturates and densities
and the lightness of your being.

to tip your head back
hair sea-grass to the saltwater
close your eyes soft
until bright sun through blood
and flesh of eyelid
become that other sky
and we become the reed-bank river,
the mud crab and the grebe
flowing with the incoming tide.

none

blood warm and smooth as silt
the honey spilled the spoon
drenching the afternoon
in long remembered sweetness

vespers

and when the rain came,
to break the heat that lay
heavy on the hills –
pushing our breath,
it came cool from the warm sky
and we who had been waiting
through the heat of days
held our hands and arms
like wilted leaves to the rain
listening to the soft splatter voice
speak our need fulfilled
until skin drenched and
stripped of our lethargy
we laughed with the sky.

compline

between breath
and horizon
the sounding
of a slow sea
that shapes
the long shore
of our sleep

between breath
and horizon
the quickening
of evening wings
the click of frog
the waking
of the night

nocturn

there was a time
when when her feet still
soft indented this dust
when the rain pooled her footprints
and the wild places grew
where she walked.
she dreamt the night erupting
in stars – and it did.

did she know the feet that followed
never could trace the intricate back forward
turn of her dance – hair and arms alight with stars.
did she know we would try
fail, try again.
did she know the feet that followed?

matins

in the long dark silence
of this night
we have only this breath
to find our way through
only our bodies
our light our longing
let it be enough
let us be enough

---

In response to Brendan’s beautiful essay at Earthweal’s weekly challenge GREEN FIRE (wild and sacred)

https://earthweal.com/2022/01/31/earthweal-weekly-challenge-green-fire-wild-and-sacred/

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