a new poem but an old story

Once upon a time

In blood warm dark and wet,

a being came to life.

Elastic fluids, plastic, slick

designed to bind.

Cock and cunt

done it.

The source of life

not strife

but pleasure.

A baby come

and the mum,

she so happy,

don’t it?

Her belly swell

and grow.

Round and round and rounder we go,

the start of it just.

This baby inside a girl.

She form so lovely,

so nice, she become

this never before and neverafter

uniquely combined expression of DNA.

She done nothing, nothing at all.

So, so, so she was created

and so she was born

to celebration,

for she was indeed

-- and are we all not--

a gift to this earth.

Fulla grace, beauty, all the hidden code already written,

just waiting for time and life to print what she would become.

Who wants to leave the womb?

Maybe some, not me.

But magnetized and slippery

the convulsive power of birth deposited me

outside.

Luckily

I landed in love.

Hands caught me,

held me with

blessings, happily,

immediately,

I was given all.

Mother,

what else is there?

In the lagoon,

where lacy seafoam curls lazily over

the sheltering shoulders of candy coral,

they wash the girl in warm seawater.

Her limbs unfold.

In the june plum tree

where the cousins climb

a hummingbird in her mossy nest of spiderweb

cradles one tiny pearl

and a pair of parakeets punctuates

day’s end when the sun slips into the sea

and sprinkles sparkle

between the ocean’s blankets

to make dreams sweet.

Then the stars themselves alight on trees

and spill bioluminescence like borealis,

colour the dark with mystery.

A ritual:

the midwife must slice the skin.

She cuts it so so carefully with her fingernail,

its slim, sharp crescent shaped like the new moon,

and gently allows the first sweet drops to spring up

from the flesh of the ripe mango.

The mother receives the first

juice to rejuvenate her after the birth.

The fruit’s flesh is consumed

by the welcoming community,

and the seed is planted for the girl’s future.

This fecund fruit tree

will ensure that she is always wealthy.

The mother licks the juice;

her eyes roll back in pleasure,

at the sweet taste and the ecstasy of birth.

The impossibility of it,

and this perfect child,

lips pulling at her breast,

sucking the very joy of life itself

into existence.

The relief of birth a release,

a gush of gladness so profound

down there,

even at a time like this.

Every question is answered

and a deep understanding pervades.

But in that blazing flash of abandonment,

in swoops a terrible missionary

and takes the child.

For her safety he grabs her,

for her safekeeping,

for there is so much danger:

the thorns,

the fer de lance,

el scorpion,

fire ants,

the world is a dangerous place,

it’s for her own good.

Stolen, the child is taken,

a long way off,

far, faraway,

to a place for safekeeping,

to a church.

Inside this place there are no circles, no cycles,

no seasons, no songbirds,

only walls, windowed with panes,

squared pews, hard rhetoric, cold logic,

a book of rules.

There are other children,

so she is not alone,

But her mother is not there.

Her touch,

her feel,

her heart,

her breath,

her blood.

Gone,

all gone.

The devastation is primal,

her loss final.

The salvation they offer

false

and

empty.

Take pity on them,

Amen.

No mangoes grow.

But there is food.

Food

so

they

can’t

feel

or

think

just

stuffed

with

food

they

grow

fat

like

larva

fat

thick

and

dull

and

full.

Take the baby monkeys from their mothers,

and they will choose the softness of rags over

a milk bottle strapped to a wire frame.

They will starve.

This child clutches the only softness she can find,

her own sweet self.

Wraps her arms around herself,

finds comfort there.

Sucks on her own fingers,

licks her own skin,

finds the pleasure

from within.

Because she was born into it

and of it,

it is her birthright:

delicious shivering pleasure

calls her,

a sensual siren guides her

to herself.

But this is verboten.

The body is not good:

it is dirty,

see the feces, the fluids, the fallibility.

She was born bad

and there is only one way to good.

Look in the book.

Fear is used to control:

fear of the self,

fear of the other,

fear of the beginning and the end,

fear of the inside and of the out.

No way out.

So she goes in.

Inside,

buried within the folds

of her own sweet secret skin

a precious pearl

of pleasure,

her eyes close.

Untouchable.

They grab her

roughly.

She is unclean,

she is beyond redemption.

She is put out.

Outside

the world cold.

Rock,

ice,

snow.

Bleak.

Barren.

She is not hungry.

Cannot,

must not

eat.

No.

For even in the cold

fat melts

and beneath she is,

is she.

But who is she?

Or what?

Alone, certainly,

and bitter,

frigid,

frozen.

She aches for warmth

of arms,

of heart,

of breath and blood and body.

And for the drop of sweetness.

The river calls.

She goes,

watches water flow.

Pewter gray,

leaden, chilled.

Ice cold,

her fingerprints burn holes

in frost feathers,

and in the eddy at the edge

a piece of lacy water

folds itself

curling,

unfurling.

She watches it.

On the banks,

the river’s flanks,

she is sculpted:

bare bones,

a skeleton,

a zest for death.

She tumbles in.

Cold instantly turns to heat,

her eyes open wide,

surprise.

How can she be warm here?

And safe?

Yet she is.

Inside the river

she is held,

taken

all the way

home.

A fat lady,

grossly obese and

ponderously gorgeous

cradles a ladle.

A pot of Rondon,

fish and roots

in a stew.

Earth’s patchouli smells like heaven.

My mouth waters.

The fat lady offers:

Eat the earth’s flesh

drink the earth’s blood,

it is yours,

earthling.

Yours for the taking.

You belong here.

Just

because

you

are

here.

She takes the food,

sits by the lagoon,

where lacy seafoam curls lazily over

the sheltering shoulders of candy coral.

She washes herself in warm seawater

her limbs unfold.

In the june plum tree,

next to a burgeoning mango

the cousins them climb.

Don’t disturb the hummingbird,

a voice warns,

and the children pool and swim

down the coconut walk,

flinging june plum peels

screeching like naughty monkeys.

The bitty bird in her mossy nest of spiderweb

rocks gently on the ocean’s breeze,

the precious pearl protected.

A pair of parakeets punctuates

day’s end.

Sun slips into the sea

and sprinkles sparkle

between the ocean’s blankets

to make dreams sweet.

The children them school onto the porch

at the back of the house

alight themselves on warm bodies

and munch on mangos

as the stars themselves alight on trees

and spill bioluminescence like borealis,

colouring the dark with mystery.

A woman comes down to the beach.

Muttering, she sweeps debris

into a pile,

branches, bits of driftwood,

leaves the sand

smooth and swirled.

Her rake aside

she lights a fire,

blue and violet flames blaze,

the scent of nutmeg

in the smoke.

I am drawn,

fire does that.

Startled the woman turns.

Her face in the flames,

shadows,

the dancing light catches

familiarity,

a mutual yearning,

learning

it can be quelled.

She reaches for me.

Come.

Come near,

no fear.

We sit

our bench a capsized coconut palm,

sand between our toes.

Upon our arms,

the softest cloak of night.

The sea swelling

ardently.

At first

no words,

our breath.

Two hearts synching,

our very ions

interlinking.

Losing charge

now that we have found each other.

Then a torrent,

a cascade of words,

la lluvia rains from our lips.

Abatement,

comfort,

contentment,

bliss.

Then silence.

Nothing but the

eternal,

heaving,

sighing,

surging

sea.

Back to back

they rest,

finally complete,

replete.

They see

but cannot believe their eyes,

a sight

so startling,

astonishing,

rare and precious:

a full spectrum of light

drug out of the sea,

marine breath mated with the moon.

A moonbow?

Extra ordinary,

miraculous,

a celebration

of the circle,

the cycling,

the ringing,

round and round

of life.