Monday, May 23, 2016

18 May (middle of the night)

I can see us
building sandcastles on the shore
not as girls who can only cry
over the crumbling inevitability
or rejoice at the spectacle of destruction
but as women wild with life
who hunger to be drawn beneath
the mystery of the waves
to see how far our depth can go

or as dancers under boardwalk lights
drunk and giddy
with the ebb and flow of moon
and swooning with the sound
of wolf howls emerging from the caverns
of our subterranean throats
fiercely threatening without intended threat
to the civil civility of the civilized
for the untamed in our eyes
and the unapologetic nature of our cries
that we don't give a damn

throwing our voices out carelessly
so they might reach
the sailers lost at sea
as witches or as sirens
or whatever they might dream

when we'll be only weavers
of baskets out of reeds
to catch the tired and failing
of every woman lush as fruit
ripe and falling from the trees
and with the resilience of our leaves
that don't just shed when they are tired
but have learned to bud again
let us be as makers
of ancient sacred salves
to soothe the bruising of our sisters
that are only seen by women's eyes
and nurse the hunger of their infants
born into this world
with knowing in the DNA
that there is danger if you cry
more than if you stand to starve

and let our backs be sturdy
with willows grown up through our spines
to carry our grandmothers
from imposing prisons
of the cartographic cage
of the patriot patriarchy known as wars
to the places where the waves make safe
and erode each line of border
that sailors sailed the seas
to draw there in the sand

when we're the singers
who do not sing temptation
but swim within creation
of the languages of truth
that open hearts to hear
knowing that each of us
has not one lonely and senseless tune
but rather her own synergetic part
of the harmony of the song
Creation sings
and let those songs join us all as women
moulded as a million grains of sand
held together in one single shell

and then when we forget
that there is mystery yet
calling for us to come to build
our castles of bitter/sweet impermanence
to erase the boundaries
of how defiance is defined
and dare do what we can
we can hold the shell up to our ears
and remember that the journey
was never about the lasting height
our imaginations can achieve
but how far what we have crafted
can be absorbed into the deep

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