Of My Mother: 5.15.17

5/15/17

10:54pm

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And so we tirelessly strive to understand love.

Walking the woods, wondering what it is.

Roots twisting down into the dark unseen;

vines curling up thick, hardened trunks  to mingle with the leaves.

Staring into the green.

        Staring into the green.

                   Staring into the green.

*

And suddenly it comes! Bubbling up through the dirt, cobwebs, and moss.  Flies in my ears whispering, here here hereas I shake my head; try to brush them away. Give me peace! I ask the insects curious of me. Crawling up my arms; stuck in my shirt.

We want to know what you are. 

I am surrounded by a breathing Earth,

exhaling under my feet as I throw my body onto rocks to ascend a mountain.

I want to know what I am. I ascend to know what I am. 

*

You are this, the Forest says. You are all of this.

And I feel my mother in the sunlight through the branches,

touching down to the ground, guiding my feet.

*

I am someone who goes.

*

And She lets me go, moving into the mist of the unknown. 

But the Forest is Her and I am the Forest.

Everything I touch is Her whispering, Go.

The buzzing in my ears never stops. She is here.

She is everywhere I turn.

In my hands and shoulders pulling me up,

calves and feet catching my falls,

hips keeping balance.

My hair on my neck,

the wind through my hair. 

And the rain.

The storm breaking out over my head, lightening in the distance.

She loved to watch storms

and I loved to watch storms with Her

and so I am the storm She’s always loved to watch,

rolling across the sky, uncontainable for Her arms, untouchable.

But She will always watch.

Her eyes, from whatever distance She can catch a glimpse,

as I fade with the day into sunlight. 

Mommy! Don’t worry! There is nowhere I can go that won’t be you! As my form shifts like a cloud to someplace new. 

For that is Love as I understood, on that day, in those woods.

*  

Yet, I will be back to search anew. Striving from a different place

to understand what I am,

and feel my mother breathing out through my skin,

through the ground holding me up under my feet. 

*****

Hiking on Mother’s Day, 5.14.17

*****

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