Her heart is flushed and red and raw, beating wildly
as if her precious life depends on it
Barefaced and undivided, feet planted
or flapping madly on a wing
she feels
Danger! it sounds a warning—
she can feel her skin prickle cold
and knows it to be true
You were made for this, it whispers, your words on paper
are my fire—
blood rushes through each vessel
until her very finger tips are dancing
and she knows it to be true

My heart is smooth and pale and pink, wrapped tightly
in thin plastic cover by unseeing eyes
faraway heart
I hear my cool mind instead, it speaks
in compelling voices
not my own
Yesterday I peeled back a thin layer called shame
with tears and chin trembling—
my heart sputtered and flickered, warm
for a time
my finger tips still numb
I want to unearth my beating heart
I want to feel it on my skin

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 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

Slim whispers under snowfall
warblers vanish, send a postcard
bloom and batten just a memory
while wind hurls sheeting rain
against my window—
my heart melts, open to
the inner wild,
my soul sings
words through pen on paper
I come alive
in the stillness, in the
bleak months

Sun is warming skin and soil
hatchlings calling, can you hear them?
cherry blossoms pink to bursting
while springtime beckons little faces
to my window—
my heart skips, one eye
to the quiet
still my soul’s urge
to be open to the passage
ebb and ease into
the rousing, the
bright months

When my proud moment isn’t on Facebook
I will hold that moment in my own two hands
touched by grace
wet with tears
giving thanks
I will feel the smooth cold glass of it
See the flash of sun sparking
new worlds in it
I will hear the harmony, and dissonance
that made it
I will smell strawberries and spring
in her hair
I will know the days and moons and moments
tears, and heart-stopping fears
of love, of trust, the holiness of her small soft hand
in mine
I will hold this moment close
longing to whoop from the treetops
wishing the world to know, this
is my proud moment—
whispering its truth
to the wind instead

I pray
I pray fire
furnace roar from your centre
circling cells, sparking breath, spirit
rising

I pray honey
warm milk sober flow
as gauze, to shield and sooth
your wound

I pray kitchen tonic
sweet ferment, anise spice
molasses bitter—the nourish
and gather

I pray leaf and flower
brewed to healing power

I pray squirrel play
great leap, and hover—  
catch and clamber
chase and chatter

I pray snowdrop
nestled in cold darkness, knowing spring
always follows winter

I pray river
ancient friend steering you to salty depths
and home

I pray sun gaze deep breath full surrender
I pray blue sky long view
sleep’s cover
I pray love of a mother
I pray

Sometimes I am ether.
Sometimes I am aria in full voice,
focussed breath from deep within, no, deeper—
from the centre of creation itself—
my truest self expressed,
I am full to bursting.
Then, transformed again,
as surely as night follows day
I am ether and together we are the breath
of everything, rolling through mighty lungs
in symphony with the stars.
Me, then we,
always breath.