I dreamed a song —
hush tones and haunted chords.
A woman loved once,
and it grew into a tree.
She watered it with years,
fed it her voice,
slept beneath it,
called the silence love.
And in the final verse,
she hung herself in its arms.
I woke with the melody lodged
between my ribs like a blade.
I turned to you,
my daughters,
my mirrors,
my storms unsoftened by shame.
I almost sang it to you,
almost let it pass
from my mouth into your bones,
like the women before me did —
lullabies lined with
martyrdom in a dress.
But I stopped.
Because I saw your eyes —
not frightened,
but awake.
And you, fierce ones,
you deserve a different song.
Categories:
unsoftened, dedication, deep, destiny, encouraging,
Form: Free verse
highway 69
rock out crops
rounded smooth
coloured striations
undulate through stone
like stretch marks
on the ancient mothers belly
where she grew fecund
giving birth to the world.
rock cuts
break the surface
blown there by dynamite charges
like ragged scars
revealing each pang of labour
laid down in rusted reds, pink, white, and grays
it is in these raw places
that her colours shine as newly made
unsoftened by ages of wear
ice ages grinding
lichens have not crept
their pale green/gray cloth
to drape her nakedness
men have touched her flanks
with force, unloving,
to forge their path north
black asphalt, alien.
not enough to claim their presence
atop each cut stand inukshuk
built to say "we were here".
Categories:
unsoftened, betrayal, mother,
Form: Free verse
Laugh at this grey town,
Dust lies thick; ragged trees
Streets lost—prairie seas
Unsoftened majesty
Wide streets end—wide earth begins
Sun sets; full moon-rise
Categories:
unsoftened, august, beauty, community, earth,
Form: Haiku