1
What is Earth but your shell?
But the sweetest comfort found in a bed of moss,
welcoming and warm,
soft dark green,
the fragrance of motherly earth misted on this everlasting pillow,
inviting you to eternal slumber -
Would you grant me just a minute,
a gently sweeping, dreaming moment of rest
under your cover of moss and twigs
(that is to say your skin and ribs)
and would you tuck me in with your rose petal lips pressed to my cheek,
your honeysuckle tongue flicking playfully as you laugh,
the sweet-voiced laughter of faeries and pixies,
as only you know how to coax out of your golden throat,
your lavender fingers grazing my jaw and eyelids, my cupid’s bow
hungrily asking for more, silently -
Here in this honeymoon suite of mosses,
the morning dew yet still shining on your nose -
a starry sky of freckles, a heaven on its own -
I lay my head in your lap as gently as a leaf on the wind,
barely felt,
barely there at all -
2
Buried deep inside,
deep, deep beneath the first and second and fifth layer of Earth,
where Mother Nature holds her own heart and takes a bite of it, too -
where Father Sun cannot reach anymore and
only roots snake through the soil,
this is where I lay and wait for your return come spring.
The shell falling asleep above me and
the fires of Earth’s core lively dancing underneath…
Here I make my bed to lie and expect in,
to humbly await as your lavender fingers take roots anew
and grow attached to your leafy body, watery yet wooden,
fragrant in the night of my soil.
When will you return to me, my heart’s desire?
To end my winter and invite spring, summer,
autumn all at once,
a raging storm of emotional seasons and none are too much to hold
for the strong Earth keeps them caged in and safe,
untouched by the outer world -
no fire or sea or thunder fit to taint them.
Please come back soon and put your elven dagger to the ravenous throat of my cold
lonesomeness.
