my brain is a clenched fist
and five acres of jungle
have burned
as you've read this;

humanity, spitting in the face of peace is
wholly miraculous, but a blind eye of mud;

your planet is a cosmic apple
what is god
sustains the creature.
---

the Thylacine, otherwise known
as the Tasmanian tiger,
was one of only two marsupials
in which both sexes harbored a pouch;
an equal home without genetic
misogyny; by 1936, the Thylacine,
the harbinger of the unlocked jaw,
the carrier of equal protection
had been hunted to extinction

---
with capillaries like ingrown flowers,

careless, hapless human fingers
tore a genome into garbage
piles as you have read this;

harvesters are celebrated
all, together germinated
with minuscule ignorant hands

we nurture ourselves into dust
with concrete, reinforced eyes

thinking the world a zoo
and that we are separate

but wolves can change the course of rivers,
think of freeway infrastructure

think of cows knee deep in ****
in former verdant land

this abomination with teeth
is a blue light in an ocean of darkness

and if we mine the root for the fruit
the tree will fall out of the sky.

up from luminous dream,
in the soft hours
of deep night's thrall
suddenly discovering
I am in
          our small corridor,
no longer
                  a narrow hall
for now, to my wonder
it is stretched into
milky-way cathedral
walls robed in
flashes of
     lit-up nostalgia
                 on black
I float, eyes wide
mind open, a-light
naked skin splashed in
the cool nocturnal breath
and before me,
    a vast gallery
          of memories:
faces in frames,
some long gone
some now turned from
round baby cheeks into
vibrant adolescent beauty
delicate curls on toddlers
now muscular,
                fire-talking angels
ancestors who I never knew
but who I am named for
stare in sepia elegance
their eyes
piercing my soul
I am a warrioress
clothed in memories'
sub-conscious fabric
my weapons,
the love
that backs me up
so full it oozes out
            from the ether
spews from geysers
soaks up through
                      the earth
stains beaten feet
my fingers feel it
in strokes of
wind-whipped canticles
generations standing
behind me,
before me
ready to rise
holding staffs
live epitaphs
ready to split the rock

My center is lit up in
past and present voices
                 echoing prayers
I feel them in my
            heart-tunnels,
                     reverberating
they turn
future ponderings
into endless possibilities
I let them all in,
absorbing strength
into deep tissue
and the hell in my spine
opens its scars
like
    flowers of
               the
                  night