I Lay Down

I lay down until
I was mostly lichen,
a bare branch,
the bark decayed.

I lay still longer
and I became dirt,
a mushroom digging
its roots through me.

I was bound,
unmoving

until I was
raining

pouring into
the ocean
and I became

undertow.

Drowned in the
taste of
salt,
no color or smell

until the tides changed
and I rode up
on a white horse

and I saw
golden sun
blue waves
and the green
of the shore.

Ah if I knew
this was my fate
I would not have been
afraid to die.

I was inspired by Mary Oliver’s poems- many of her poems- especially ‘Sleeping in the Forest‘. My poem is only a small telling in the face of her gorgeous writing, but I thought it was worth mentioning the inspiration.

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Of the Sea

We are all of the sea
-all

the waves
our salt life,
our hair
seaweed.

You can turn
your back
and act apart

but your salt
water veins
move with the
moon like mine,

your heart
trembles
in the same waves
as mine.

We are all of the sea
-all

connected by
salt waves
through our hearts.

 

Inked Love

Inked arms
curling like
incense smoke
around
my heart.

I pray in kind.

He traces
his map
on my skin

where he had
been

dark places
and lost

and how he
only had
a candle –

all this
he draws
onto me

as I breathe
his spiced smoke
and take all of him in

– all

until the prayer
is answered

and I read
his tale
over and over

inked
on my skin.