kintyre

on the west coast of Kintyre

where blood of our Mother swells

with seaweed, our grandmothers' arms

stirring cauldrons of

ocean and chutney,

porridge and jam,

sweet sweaty waters

rolling toward ankles

gathering in villages

of pebbles and foam

spirit-filled rocks, hey what

do you say

standing here growing with flowers and mosses,

lilac clovers in crevassed wrinkles i caress now

with my fingers that used to be seaweed

frilled and bulged and slimed with salt juice.

they speak to me of a

deep earth womb within the hardest shell,

the mightiest protection for

most spectacular foetus

they echo back the hum of an ancient memory in my every cell that remembers the song of darkness,

when darkness was where we nested

in the cradle of placental blankets,

sticky and salty and safe.

they speak to me of a time

where darkness had nothing to do

with badness,

where dirt was not yet dirty.

they speak to me of making this bed of grass their home

they speak to me of the laughability of perfection

they speak to me of the shit they have been through and how it just is,

you know,

how it just is.

the ocean tells me of the stories and grime from beneath her surface, of the guts and the corpses and plastics and oils, of the monsters that may wash up by my ankles next

her call is clear opaline crystal,

slicing like ice the lonely lies that distort our lives

our naked bodies seize and tingle in her rolls of glass this misty morning as white sun grazes heaven's carpet and we are content to be tossed between their dialogue, unfussed and trusting in their thrusting

and what else but to fall now back

into wavelet that swell

to wave that crash back

to the chaos

of the mysterious