Earth I am Listening

3 poems on the earth, both within and without.

Quiet Wolves

This is where the wolves live
right here, in this red tent of a heart,
they hunt the nervous hare,
hound the aged deer. 

Me, mother,
I have stood in the rattling dark,
birthed under a ripe-fruit moon,
groped in the halflight 
for a lover, for a sickbowl,
for a broken-the-same-way friend,

and still they are silent. 
Most of the time,

their quiet zanshin
makes the shape of myth
and around it my body 
takes the form of a bloated
forest.

me, lover
concertina in his arms,
diffuse as a folded cloud. 
Above me he sees how my ice 
is a jagged knife
and the cold soup beneath can pull him in,

and does.

now, there is a hurricane
on the beach, flings the stones 
like sling shot, we are wounded

and still they do not howl.

(The northern lights)

(first published in Earth we are Listening - a poetry anthology edited by Katie Metcalfe, Slice of the Moon Books. This anthology can be bought here.)

Zanshin is a Japanese word commonly used in martial arts for relaxed awareness 

Vetiver

I sit here in the dawn creep 
hand on the trigger 
of my coffee cup

I hear waves
in the purr of the cat
remember the tide

How it comes neap 
relentless over me,
wonder, am I depressed?

Am I that type of woman?

Can you help me 
to find a new perfume 
That expresses sorrow
and losing?

It would have vetiver,
I'm sure.  
The forest often smells 
like that,
like a mourning. 

But who can read trees?
our own soft science 
scars itself deep, 
I,
in the hollow lumen.

I hear the echo from here,
but then,
I am not far from the forest.

(First published in Unpsychology under he title 'Drowning')

(a forest in Devon, England)

I Want a Parrot

I’ve started wanting a parrot.
I go to the local Bird House 
and watch them climb with their beaks.

Perhaps it’s the luminous vibrancy 
or the way they look at you, as if they 
know how you like your eggs, 
or how you touch your face when you are nervous. 

I touch mine because I am always nervous. 
I have hives, is it the menopause 
or am I just highly strung? 

Now, a flutter of sparrows lift from 
as many nests as there are leaves on the ivy. 
I´m sure I am with them, 
until I see my feet on the ground.

I want a parrot, 
it’s claws on my shoulder gripping me in this world. 
Me launch pad, me ground, me tree;
The solid me to its bird. 

Maybe I just want someone to talk to.


(first published in the award winning Bloody Amazing, 123 taboo smashing poems.)

(a parrot in the parrot house in Sammatz, Neu Darchau)

Here we have three poems where who I am and the vastness of the earth get intermingled. Where my simple human suffering is her huge planetary pain, there is no real separation between these things and we can look to our own journeys to see how our earth is faring. I say this in quite a general way but if we look to our young people and see how they are becoming crippled with social media or constant streaming availability with no chance at boredom or self reflection, or the ability to find resilience in spontaneity. Not forgetting, of course, less time outside with our ailing world - maybe the earth needs our companionship just as much as we need it.

The final poem is touching the journey to menopause the strangeness of emotions and newness of feelings that appear to be superimposed on my identity. the longing for empathic friendship someone who understands the flight of birds in the belly or the involuntary squawk of surprise rage. Sometimes I am as lonely as the earth is.

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