My ancestors were a funny lot,
Christians, or Atheists who lost the plot,
I meandered into a world of Faith,
A Christian woman, praying for Grace,
We're all on a mission for God,
To a path beyond, we're trod,
Every faith is for free,
It's up to you what you believe,
I must say I am atheist friendly,
All inclusive Christianity.

I have been practicing love instead of anger,
but how do I digest the pain my parents silently suffered,
or the losses my mother still reminisces each and every year,
tell me how can I respond with love when they taught my family self-hate,
to hate their home and hair,
to hate their skin and the clothes they wear,
how do I forgive generations of suffering,
and how they made my uncle a martyr,
brainwashed him to die in a war that could’ve been prevented,
how do I forgive the domino effect of life, that made their great grandparents **** mine?
love runs through my veins,
but anger lives within my blood,
I guess I saw it in my mother's eyes,
you can still love without forgiveness,
but it will take room in your mind,
build a home of sadness,
you’ll pass on to your child.

What happens to us—
the dispossessed, rootless
the disembodied?
We are hungry
tasting but not eating. I long for
matter
atoms so densely packed I can
see, hear, touch—
know
I want our stories spoken out loud
by mouths and minds, intact
remembered by trees old as my ancestors
in soil we made our own
Not carried by spirits lost to the winds
and scattered

Will they hear me
when I bring my fears and sorrow
in soft-beating bundles
to lay at their feet?
Will they come with kind eyes
when I call
sweetening in the summer of my life —
for help to find my way
home?

And what, when one day I catch
a hushed fragment, riding on a most
pale wisp of wind?
whiff of wood burning,
shiver of laughter,
a darkness
not quite mine
What happens when I let go of the longing
for things apparent?
an unravelling, a swell and shimmer
of space around each atom, as I
come apart at the seams
less body, more spirit
less me,
more we

Where do our spirits rest?
If not rooted down in land and place, then
the frailest of filaments dancing
seen only in sun’s first light—
reaching out, and out     twining the other
winding together, a web of ancient pattern
staying the stars
holding us all,
whispering

I visited my harbor
A refuge among the waves
I walked among giants
And touched the cold firm ground
And rocks that formed foundations
Of communities and families
Of a world handed down

I saw the faces of my elders
I felt the hands of my grandmothers
On my shoulders
As I scrubbed the stones clean
The sun shone on my neck
Warming me as I worked.
One last rinse of their headstone

And my task was done
They sparkled and smiled
Back at me
And as the dates in the stones held fast,
My clock continued to advance
And I left knowing I felt better
Their embrace was healing.

Some strong sensations on my ankle
Unravel me
Dissolve me

Remind me
When pain and suffering
Led the path

I thought it was real,
Was the only,
Was the only way--

And now I wake up to ten thousand
Hairs on the soles of my feet
Tugging me
Into the day
From starlight
And ancestors
Going my way

Remember, remember
I walk on these feet
With curiosity, flexibility,
Wonder and love

Grandmother Earth
Is right down below-- So
Today I can step on
The ground with pure joy,
Embracing this place by
Loving breath from my soles

I want to know where I’m from
the very place—
a finger tip touch on a globe spinning
drawn to as by magnet
a return, cup filled
with holy water
an arrival

I am a hedgewitch
navigating the slippery edge
where land meets water
body meets spirit
I meets we—
listening
unearthing the violence
of conviction, the thunderous tearing up
of roots, my people unbound
and running
where are they? (where am I?)
If not in land and place
where do our spirits rest?

There in the lowlands, eyes softening
my bones shift and settle, senses
rise and quiver, and the winds bring stories
fermented by the sun
preserved by salty ocean
retold in the language of tiny creatures
and deep roots—
those that remained

I want to lie down in soil made up of my ancestors,
embraced by bones

I reach back through memory and mortality
To inspire that which I am to become
Exciting the bones of my ancestors
Their feathers of black and red and white
The golden rays of dead and declining stars
Deflecting off the face of the moon
"Is life still real if it echoed?"
"Yeeess," they exhale from eons past.
The first and only answer to an ageless urge
Stretching to me, through me
Filling the unfathomable empty
With intimacy and evidence
New issues to nurture
Most seeds remain in the shadows
Dreaming of a shift in the design
Stardust progressing toward potential
Again and again and again
And again the bond is broken
And refashioned
I am remembered
In unsettled frenzy, my soul awakens
Setting alight my future