Category: Mono No Aware

Fingers weave

My fingers weave a rug for my ancestors;
The ones who stole scraps from factory floors
In clock-faced brick mills in treeless towns.
Who heard meadow grasses whispering in golden snippets
Snatched up the blue-green lilt of bracken tracks in dusken hills
And, feeling the warmth of old stone in ochre swatches,
Wove them all in, so the children warmed their feet
And remembered that once they ran free.
 
My fingers weave a rug for my sisters;
Women who sing with buzzards and drum to the North.
Who travel out on dog sleds to ice floes where worlds end
To gather songs of snow and blood and bone, and
Carry them back, and gather us in, and sing them for us
By a hearth so warm and bright that the ice starts to thaw
And wilder melodies flow back in amidst the
Meltwater; the tears of homecoming.
                                                                    
My fingers weave a rug for my sisters and brothers;
Those who step into the flames, and use the
Kindling of their guilt to spark the flame of their innocence.
Who torch their shame on a bonfire of wild abandon
So fierce, that the inferno of expansion burns
All their fear away, so only love remains.
I weave them Waves of Bliss to remind them,
Reflecting their infinite waves.
 
My fingers shred the shirts my brothers wore
Through their night sweats, and slice up the
Cheap cotton of dying lakes and exhausted soils.
Untangle acid wools from mountain deserts,
And weave them all into a rug so strong,
And so soft, that it holds newly birthing worlds
While my voice and tender heart sing along
To all of our freedom songs.
 
September 2017

Blood Flowing Out

Blood is flowing out,

As a meander, in the thing, slips back in.

Walls of grief like weather fronts

Have battered this island for days,

Named storms, like Britain’s;

Tearing at the social fabric, from within actually

Because we’ve forgotten personal sovereignty

Our language craving creativity

As we buy leave, like our leaven

With our anxiety.

And battles are STILL being fought in this body.

The wars are being waged IN my body;

A ravaged body

May seem like collateral, but is the endgame,

Did you know? Until they’re still,

Until Rome has come, and gone, again,

And prophets have ceased their howling,

What chance to even hear their own truth?

This moon glancing cool across desert growing

Whispers: ‘Quieten children, liSSSSten…’

Blood is flowing out,

As a meander in the thing, slides back in.

And I wanted to show you how I pray

But I was sobbing in the corner;

A no with which I’m creating space for a thousand

More joys in a bigger YES!

Til then I’m battening down:

Let my winds howl, like the wild things

Across the craters, that will form the lakes

From which will birth our tomorrows.

2015, Hard Rain