
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