Creature Speak

I want sing it all out of me. 

Some don’t like the speed, 
but I love the tone.
Something reaping while bleeding 
that becomes something more.
A lament for the dying 
who are not yet dead. 
A lullaby for the sleep walkers 
to find their beds. 

A whaling at the griev­ing wall.  
A gut wrenching cry 
so peace can find us all.

But peace never comes, 
and the grief lives in my lungs 
and in my eyes. 
I try to smile but only wind up crying. 
But at least the tears flow now. 
So many years trapped behind a damn, 
begging to come out to feel the sun again.
Light hits the water making crystals
for my skin, hoping to sink in. 

To soothe my heart, 
for that's what tears are for.  
Holding them back keeps us
forever forlorn and wandering alone.
In desolate lands from man 
who never watered the plants. 
Only kept the water for himself 
so when the fires came 
he’d have something to sell.
Cut up the mother 
to be purchased in parts. 
Slice the woman for beauty
and call it art. 

Try as he may to overcome the sea, 
she will bring her reckoning.
For water remembers everything.

The record keeper is alive 
and well and ever present still, 
recalling all the blood we spilled, 
and the dirt we tilled 
to steal the shiny bits 
and toss the rest. 
The trees torn down 
for the land to be dressed 
in our farms and homes 
and our flags in the soil, 
and our sense of control.

Plastic Earth and plastic girls. 
A God forbidding a woman to be real, 
ordaining man with the right 
to kill anything a little too wild.
But she is not mad 
or hot tempered to be tamed. 
The mother is the Land,  
and the cup, and the water, itself:
forces too big to be claimed. 

And her song will be heard 
by the whole world 
whether man tries to silence her 
or opens his ears, 
and whether or not 
he likes the sound,
For the music is the calling 
of holy ground.

Copyright © 2021, S. Naify