Author: heather

In these beetle times

with hard tight bodies,

shiny skittering

abounds

at a dizzying pace.

In the forest

a slug undulates,

sensitive softness

draping

over rough protrusions.

Without appendages,

movement comes from its thick centre

supported by earth.

Attentive feelers

respond in a delicate sway,

new information coaxing the lazy excursion.

Comfortable in its own slime.

it exudes a messy benediction,

a shimmering trail.

The beetle stops

to briefly hear

the languid rustling,

a thousand slugs receiving

earth’s massage.

I am making room for this raw birthing,

upsurge of emptiness,

embodied birth canal open to receive dark light.

I am tasting the soft me,

the self that is truly one-time stew,

my blend of flavours and stirrings.

The lid has clattered to the floor,

the stew continues to simmer,

waiting for new ingredients.

The lid has clattered to the floor,

the soup is not finished.

I am open to the soft me,

the invitation to sip savoury sweetness,

to offer up my broth

for hungry travellers.

I am open to right now,

listening for the dance of molecules,

vast stillness between them.

This rain is real,

it soaks all that we try to keep dry,

made of atoms and energy and illusion

and wetness.

This fear is real,

it soaks all that we try to keep dry,

but we build structures that barely breathe

to keep out the flood.

Consciousness breeds alert fear.

Light calls us into dark,

into deep surrender to real loves,

the kind that need us and fart in the night.

It calls us into deep surrender

to real beloveds,

the ones who walk our path for a while

and trample our gardens

and crayon on the walls

and use grafitti to speak their despair

and play soccer with a tin can because there is no ball

and present us with their muck to kiss better.

The light calls us into dark.

It will not push us over the abyss,

but lays out the vista of pain and sorrow,

the place where love is ripped away,

where the idea of loss

is ripped from the ecstatic crucible

and offered as a real cup of poison.

Love so deeply that it hurts,

love these freckled real beloveds

with abandon,

love this container of pleasure and disease

the Mother has birthed.

Love with the full view that all is lost,

in the full knowledge of black pain,

at the edge of a real cliff where the rocks

will not fly away as you fall.

Love into the smashing,

the place where you lie naked in a circle of men with stones,

or one man burning with the eyes of love,

and do not falter even though you shake.

Even though you melt and tremble

with the deep humiliation of festering wounds

or fresh ones

or the snot on your face that mingles with your tears,

do not falter.

Drag yourself to the edge,

without your dignity intact,

roll off.

End this wandering,

this searching for my people,

this longing to share the joy of love.

My heart is still,

the leaves flutter around it,

and there is welcome space

for my people to enter in.

Dedication to the effortless fall,

the one that springs from gentle friendship with gravity.

Persistence in relentless listening,

the whisper touch of breath on inner skin.

Fierce loyalty to unspecific kinships,

strangers met with courageous smiles.

Passion shared in murmurs,

vitality crackling in the bones of each generous hand.

Opening to ground,

this vital dance takes place in stillness,

harvest of fertile planting.

Rage disguised as love

is toxic poison,

a slow trickle of acquiescence

that builds in the gut

and leaves no room for light.

It hides gently in

the simmer of a hundred thousand cooking pots,

the quiet scratching of a million brooms.

It seeps into the broth;

brooms trace generational residues.

The lover takes her broom

to shake at the beloved,

yells at him to leave his muddy boots outside,

tells him to walk for a while in the rain.

The lover fills her insipid pot

by looking in the cupboard,

finding unexpected flavours to share.

Stirring and stirring, she waits in her own time,

tasting the fruits of his labour and hers,

preparing an offering for their mutual pleasure.

When the meal is ready,

she calls with the true voice of adoration.

Breathtaking in gracious postures,

she dances to invoke light,

blistering heat

traversing an illusion of gentleness,

hard muscles softened by decades of dedication.

She dances to invoke the many faces of love,

wide smiles and deep torments,

birthing fresh acknowledgment with each patterned step.

She dances to engage the watchers,

witnessing the spark

as it travels through her body.

Wind from whirling arms blows softly on their own tinder.

The soft secret

to a woman’s power

is not in riding the wild stallion.

Mare and mate run like wind,

eat from the belly of the earth,

nuzzle their foals

… but she learns to be ridden,

to have his deep hoofprints etched into her flanks,

to hear his wild screams

and to stand with deep grounding

as the earth breathes strength into her legs,

as she plants herself in love,

repeats the wet invitation,

stands open to the tearing rip of surrender,

finds the quiet power

with which she rises to meet his blows.

This brittle cup

becomes softened by the wine,

allowing the goblet to be tossed from hand to hand,

passed through the carousing hordes

to the groom.

Nobility disguised in common garb, he sits,

yearning, in a circle of comrades,

laughing with delight

as the tankard approaches.

Though much has splashed into the room,

he holds the dregs with reverence,

drinks with sweet abandon

and throws the chalice into the fire,

where it burns to a puddle of gold.

On this last day,

the one in which the now shrinks down

to a handful of breaths,

and the air softens

to welcome death

and the world is shrouded in light

like a crypt suffused with tender welcome

– on this last day,

the beloved sees invisible filaments

strung between different species of trees.

Blown into place

by the breath of the world,

these conduits become the crafting place

where artesans create beauty.

Stronger than they look,

these webs fill random space

with predictable, ever-different patterns.

Unseen in many kinds of light,

the glorious work continues.