Our tears soak the Earth,
But you carry them away,
As a beautiful babbling brook,
your steady stream lulling us to sleep and bringing peace.
And wherever you go, I know, life will spring; tapestries of dreams and all the splendid things.
We, battered, molested and assaulted,
abused and silenced.
We, with the secrets we keep,
passed down to our daughters as whispered warnings.
We, with our apologies we make in so many ways,
we create a new language.
We, with our bleeding bodies, aching cheeks, and sacrilegious skin,
forced into glass castles,
with fairytales,
short ceilings,
and narrow halls.
We, with our inconvenient emotions and loud voices,
told to abandon the angry, crazy woman,
Oh, but the beautiful boldness of her honesty.
Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, we become.
There is a fierceness in the way we transform the abuse,
as background noise to our lives.
The nature of being women.
We, the unshakeable trees bearing witness to generations of women who power through to find happiness in all the grossness and unjustness.
We, the daises growing in the cracks of sidewalks.
We, the waterfalls pouring our hearts out in all we do.
We, the rumbling on the rocks, with our weary shoulders and bulging bellies, always marching forward in the hopes one day we will understand our power in the way men already do.
The very things that make us look weak, are evidence of our strength.
As much as we are beaten, we rise up with life. We grow it, we become it.
Take up your power. You are Earth itself.
You see, there is a day we will take these wrongs, and birth something beautiful.
I’ve seen humans climb mountains higher than they can breathe,
I’ve seen flowers grow in the cracks of deadened leaves,
I’ve seen seas with strength hidden underneath,
and I think, maybe, just maybe that can be you and me.
Still working on this poem, but posting anyway!
This earth
absorbing
your blood,
to give rise,
to new life.
For years
capturing
your tears,
to bring waves,
of change.
Your hands,
imprinting
on this land,
deserving most,
the promise owed.
Your skin,
collecting
in the dust,
coating the very structures,
built to keep you contained.
But the steady heartbeat,
of your feet,
are battle cries,
that the Earth,
who has mothered your dead,
recognizes and liberalizes.
Reading some Mary Oliver poems have inspired a few poems out of me today. Love her poems and need to buy some of her books.
Morning
When I dare to wake up early,
still half asleep and groggy,
doubt ripples like the breaking sun—
What have I done?
Then—
the cardinal call tells,
the trees to rise like citadels,
and all the strange shadows,
repose,
into familiar things.
My slumbering dreams,
long forgotten,
as the world blossoms—
and everything seems possible.
Breeze
I find solace,
in the way,
the wind whispers,
through the trees,
as if you,
are haunting,
me.
unwrithings 