Under the sun, you shine like the incarnation of youth

At nightfall you glow, like you just made love to the moon
You are elegance, you are patience, you are reflection, you are still

Your beauty shines from your inside out,
Reaching outward upward into the skies,
Your branches know no realm too high,
Your roots know no soils too deep
There are no limits to your courage

Under the sun
Your fruitful seeds spill out over your skin
You are open hands and generosity
You are selflessness

Under the moon
You are wisdom, enlightenment and truth
You are humility and grace

But your sacredness is undervalued at best, neglected and challenged
They raid you, from your insides out
Deep inside your mines and your waters so deep
Scavenging for a dollar
exploiting all they reap
******* the air right out of your lungs
You are exhaustion, you are bare
You are forgotten

Yet still your tides rise and fall with the moon
You are forgiveness, you are hopeful, you are inspiration

In your image I will teach my children to grow
Through your eyes, I will show them the world
With your hands I will build their home

Does it scare you that you will not be able to visit me when I am dead?
Are you afraid you will not know where to find me if you try and look?
Do you find it unsettling to think of me after I am no longer with you?
Don’t fear my passing. I will not be gone.
Don’t look for me. I will not be found in one place.
I am in the depths of your breath and the warmth of your skin.
You should not feel unsettled,
but rather peaceful, in knowing that you will never be alone.
You won’t need to keep a picture of me
or hoard my belongings in boxes. Those things are not me.
If you want to know me, know yourself.
If you want to remember me, remember yourself.
If you want to love me, love yourself.

As a white, middle class female, history and society have labeled me an oppressor.
And the fact that I have come so far to face is that, by nature,
and by that I mean by the socialized conditioning of my white ancestors, I am.
An oppressor of the people, of the land, of myself.
The history of mainstream culture has deprived me of a connection with nature.
It is this social history that I tire with, that I struggle to accept.
See, but with this wisdom comes freedom,
a freedom to reject the path that society and history has paved for me
and to find my own, to find my own truths.
I am a conserver, and I have found nature to be a conserver too.
Traces of my roots and my life reach further than any town limits or cemetery stonewalls.
You can’t cover my spirit with foundation, eye shadow and lipstick.
It may hide death in my face, but it won’t beautify my spirit.
My soul needs no resting place.
It will continue on to live and breathe in the absence of my body,
which has only been a vessel.
I will not be confined.
I can not be confined, not by religion, not by my race, not by my class.
I will not be put in a box, not in life, and not in death.