yes, there were many joyful things mixed with the blood. – clarice lispector.
sometimes all we can offer are the words. sometimes all we have are the words. and for that i am grateful. this came to me like a wild mother, like a hand of profound power and gentle grace. she is what is comforting me in this moment of uncertainty- all deep breaths and strangeness. below is only a portion of this piece- my hand wouldn’t stop moving. i know this will play a part in annunciation, my third offering to the world- this word that has been following me around in different forms, different adventures, different creatures- since the summer. a friend and fellow poetess told me that doing the polar bear plunge is “good for the guides.” i had no idea how right she was. the door to this opened when i tried to start writing about myself in a loving way.. no coincidence. this is as much for you as it is for me.
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the eyes that have been wearing glasses since childhood but only so the heart can see clearer. in the mists of the night, the reflected deer soul crossing your path. i am going to make a work of striking, strange oneness. like reality percepted itself. HEART that loves to the point of ruin, stands in the fire city, recreates it from mud and ash again, not blinking. not asking for anything, but THIS, always this. earth city, mud city, the hand palms and feet soles that bless the wounds and suck the energy from sky, air, ground, trees, dirt- drink it desperately like GOOD MEDICINE- the only kind left- the body you once extricated, criticized, now crashed to wholeness by the perfect sea- i am salt and longing, fragmented light still twinkling with magic so ancient from before i was born this way- it constantly tells me i’m okay and some days i feel pure enough to believe it, my hand going to pins and needles as i write this, my body born again in the shock of aliveness, perfect frigid waters, crying and laughing, howling, this is how we were born- and some days i feel wild enough to believe it. near to the wild heart i am cleansed by my own blood spilled, i want to look at it in my hands, know i died for something- gasping, gaping, the way an open wound breathes open mouthed just before healing- twinkling, i had never felt my lungs before, i had never heard my heart before- I AM. like she before me and all the animals i am still a cave painting swirling wind, fur and belief- fossilized in crouched cocoon i can feel myself at the river’s edge- I COME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE and that place has healed me. make enough space in between your bones and ache for the incantation to begin, this is how we turn salt to sinew, memory to surrender to what is greater, wordless- i am always edging the notion between words and sleep, stretching like fingers towards the whole damn world’s oblivion, even jesus the christ had to leave to come back, you always wander to return, RENEWED. bless this heart, these hands, these teeth that love too purely, salt in the fierceness, the wound, the truth, the library- all i can do is scribble at the doorways in my head, i will unlock them all with heart fire the way a blaze never asks permission, it just comes to return and then leaves as if it never left, this is eternity in the flesh- can you feel it? burning boats and bridges, sweet algae climbing on the sides of memory, grasping, drinking, gulping the marrow- i will stay close to the lupine heart, i will be rock and moss and teeth and shadow- i will be the sunburst on the water, i will sing with eyes electric, i will stand at helm of fearful generator but in GREATNESS- I AM.
XO
a.