They met at midday Mothers Daughters Sisters Friends Then the keening started One voice Then five Then all of them Screaming with balled fists Until the rage and grief Became breath itself Heads thrown back Hands holding hands Tears streaming and teeth bared No words They had exhausted words Words were ignored The harm was always buried Deep beneath silence Indifference Choked out by misogyny Patriarchy State sanctioned predators Who never faced accountability For the harm they caused But made sure women were punished For talking about the harm Or defending against the harm One in five Likely more Every woman knows someone If not in their own reflection School Book club Work All women know the entitlement of men Now they were done Done grieving In showers In cars In closets Alone So they came In every town and every city In every country To be seen To be heard To create a sound so deafening The Goddess woke Their rage and grief a clarion Heralding it was time for someone else To finally be afraid
The calendar changes With it the season Warm sun now Joined by coolest breeze Night comes earlier Mornings arrive later Trees put on a pageant Autumn has arrived
One night Under the witness of starlight I snuck into the garden Knelt in the midnight-dark soil And planted my tiny voice in the moonlit earth
It would not grow inside my throat You see There was no room for it there So I had to pluck the small, fragile thing out
I knew it had things to say Experiences to share Stories to weave with the help of breath and feeling But it was failing to thrive inside my throat A smothered and guttering spark
I knew it would grow roots in the rich earth After all It was closest to the ancestors' bones I knew that when the sun rose it would grow And when the rain fell it would drink deep
I fertilized it with poetry Tended it with song And sure enough it grew bit by bit It became a hardy thing A beautiful thing full of strength and confidence
One morning In the light of dawn I dug it up and swallowed it down One giant gulp It flipped and turned as it settled Leaving my throat raw and aching
When it finally stilled I spoke My voice emerged rich and warm It did not waiver or whisper I began to tell my stories and sing my songs And when I was shushed My voice resounded like a thunderclap
I’m still in love with the dream of you The you full of potential and promises Who made me feel… But loving a dream costs too much So much unspoken subtext in each conversation Truths too costly to acknowledge Feelings beneath the surface Drowning in sorrow The boundary between us A pane of glass Impassable and impenetrable For all but what lies Unsaid in our eyes I see it on your face too Things that you want to say Feelings unresolved Both of us arcing Not allowed to connect Knowing you would welcome being consumed I would not survive what sparks Dreams offer no foundation And I need stability now I pray to wake from this wanting Of a you that never was Or will ever be
I look up from my book The air ringing with sounds Ceramics scraping wood Steam hissing Laughs entangling with sighs A woman sits by the window Hands wrapped around a cup Tea tag wound around fingers But I was drawn to the lipstick on her teacup
I lay beneath a starless sky Wondering where they have gone Have they become the freckles Dancing across my nose Strands of silver streaking my hair Glitter in my joyful tears Have they fallen to Earth So I can shine
In these strange days I can’t help but wonder stranger things I’ve heard it said that life here on this earth is a graduate class for the soul You see, we are not bodies with a soul We are, instead, souls with bodies We have chosen to walk and talk and hurt and love We have made an agreement with Oneness To take a fraction of what we are And condense down into this biological machine called a body We have chosen to leave Oneness to become one Single Alone amongst others who are also alone I can’t help but wonder what we are meant to learn What don’t we already know through our original experience of Oneness Maybe it’s the simple act of experiencing the finite A contrast to already being so familiar with the infinite What an existence we must lead in Oneness To allow us to be so curious that we willingly come to THIS place Full of fear and uncertainty Cruelty and chaos But also kindness and compassion And love Love with all its grit and glamour Its risk and reward How brave are we to give up the infinite NOW of Oneness For the finite uncertainty of Earth time Where those around us that we learn to love and cherish are Too, bound by the limits of a linear existence Where love and loss are the rhythms of life’s tides upon this world Such contrast and contradiction I suppose there’s beauty in it Oh, to be able to know now what I will know after To be able to answer with certainty what it was all for The good and the bad To know how good of a human I was Where I helped Where I hurt Where I healed Will I miss this experience when it’s over Will I choose to return again Will you I think about all of the various mythologies of life and death I think about how more than one thing can be true at once How time and experience is such a strange soup So as the world becomes more and more outlandish As long held collective truths seem on the verge of collapse The undeniable feeling that something new is being birthed Through this terror on the back of a desperate hope I can’t help but ponder stranger things And my place within it all
Sometimes A woman is an island Steadfast amid the violence Of salt water and storm cloud Eyes ever focused Where the sky caresses the sea Kissed all over by the ebb and flow of waves Dancing with moontides Volcanic at times Worn and weathered and wiser As beautiful at sunrise as sunset As much a force as nature herself
