But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
******* up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
The the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

She's not just "a girl you know"
or someone you see on the streets.
Above anything, she's a dream
a gift
a miracle
every inch of her is a universe
you'd have trouble trying to define.
Tell her you love her
only if you really do,
if not then leave her alone.
You can try to fool her
but you should know
you're the one to fall down
in the end.



© Leigh Herondale  *June 2015

Does it offend you terribly
To see a girl so bold?
An undefeated smile
She wouldn't trade for solid gold
Rooted from dark histories
Of prejudice and shame
She struts with such a presence
Like the world should know her name

Does it boil your blood
To see a woman in demand?
Who doesn't care for limitations
Dictated by the man?
Doesn't need your validation,
Admiration or desire;
She treads upon a world so cold
And she will bring the fire

i am not a girl but a storm,
crackling and rumbling and shaking the ground with my strides.
measure me,
not by my beauty
but by my rage.

richter, beaufort; i am not contained by these numbers.
i am more than what they make of me.

i am not a girl;
i am a storm.

and a storm raises winds like hellfire and blazes through the urban sprawl and is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent.
i am infinite, omniscient, omnipotent.

fear me.

The stars
The moon
Leading me back to you

The sun
The trees
Unleashing my soul to be free