#MeToo

#MeToo is me, 11 years old, coming back from school and sitting on the Parisian metro. i am tired and daydreaming about…homework? making sure i study for my upcoming test? what someone at school said or did ? don’t remember. there is a man sitting next to me. old. bald. 50ish. that’s old for me in those days. and then i remember a hand slipping underneath my butt, fumbling about the side of my…

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afternoon meditation at the cemetery : sitting, grounded in the unconditional embrace of birch-root-wisdom: leaf cathedral showering down autumn-gold & summer-sky: the dead rest in peace.

5 women.

we sit on the mountain, five breathing points of a star, souls turned toward sky & that sunwomb cleaved in mountain-range, that mighty triangle- infused with light, she glows strong & pale & strong as we sit on the mountain, five breathing points of a star, sitting with the darkless summer night & the midnight sun.

drumsong is shared like freshwater, & tenderly, souls are washed.

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sleep. just sleep.

Midnight. Surrounded by mountain, air, forest, sky, spirit whispers, the soft embrace of the dead, the unborn and the living. Sleep. Just sleep. They said. You can rest here, on my belly, said the mountain. You can rest beneath my wings, said the sky. Find your warmth and strength, said the north wind. We will guard your space, said the dead, my beautiful great-grandmother and fiery mother. Sleep…

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just now.

dear mama, each passing day breathes a loving, searing, dance of homecoming & farewell- imprinting body & soul with evanescence replete with the lightness of the dragonfly hum in summer, and the deep, dragonbreath magma-song of grief. but today…today is just goodbye. once more.

& here we are again: one more spin round the sun, one more year, stacked upon another & another & another. but today…

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storm

it’s a storm.

& she’s raging proud & strong & convulsing tornadoes deep in my moaning belly.

how do you say sorry to the dead, when they lie beyond any need for forgiving, having forgiven all, a long time since ?

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in the nearness of you, i whittle away & erode my diffuse soul

one moment she recoils, shrunken & trembling: a leaf already caught up in autumn, a relish of colour, exquisitely unsure of being alive; and now it is time to fall, ever so gently fall, and splay out on moist earth, sharing breath with nightstars & summer’s echoing of insect-dance on faded grass.

one moment she soars, laughing wildly,

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Last night. Writing on a dream. Full moon weaving its watery magic.

Last night. Writing on a dream. Full moon weaving its watery magic.

a great-grandfather visits.

last night, in quiet unshaped dreamwaters, you visited for the first time.

you died so many many years before i came to be.

last night, in quiet unshaped dreamwaters, we sat you and i, on a rowboat, drifting towards a dawn mist soft as silk. your wife, my father’s mother’s mother, sat with us. we sang for you unspoken words in the silence, unbroken by water and sunrise.

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once in a while you visit : a memory of my great-grandmother.

once in a while, you visit, sudden, un-beckoned, always acknowledged with a smile infinitely sad and tender that unfolds its butterfly wings and dragonfly depth in the space between breaths, somewhere between my remembering heart and my childhood me. once in a while, you visit, bestowing upon the instant scents and tastes, confetti-like, and right now, it was a waft of Sunday and winter, the…

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Morning Ritual

Danielle McLaughlin : in memoriam.

a tribute to Danielle McLaughlin, who was raped & murdered in South Goa on Tuesday, in the wake of Holi, the festival of colours that celebrates aliveness & love.

for the past few years, i have spent many months in South Goa, and have driven past the open field where Danielle’s body was found, countless times. Danielle’s story is yet another tragedy in our seemingly endless flow of women violated, desecrated, murdered. another Jyoti Singh. another Lucia Perez. the list goes on. this time it feels very close to home. i know the land where Danielle took her last steps very well. i have lived and loved there. mourned my mother and scattered her ashes in that patch of ocean. and like many these past days, i am moved to words, sadly aware, that even as i write them, somewhere else there is another Danielle, another Jyoti, another Lucia living through the same nightmare.

dear Danielle,

when you & i met, already you were no more, and the world was bursting at the seams with everything you were & would have been, if your young life had not been ripped away from you on that violating, murderous night.

had we met, you & i, i know i would have admired your sylphan beauty & flowing hair turning the setting sun into vibrant dark flame as it kissed your soft head- my eyes fall into yours, a smiled is shared woman to woman, human to human, my old soul a little stunned with wonderment at the sheer aliveness of you; you walk past my slow, ocean-filled steps & now away from me, into the warm sea-breeze laughing across your open face.

what can i say to you now ? that i know, in my breathing heart, how the old earth on which you exhaled your last, welcomed you in her arms, sobbing & gasping, how the aged forests embraced you as you ebbed away, deep into the ground, dissolved into thick salty air & the ocean’s singsong, into thousands of star upon star looking down at you, screaming, unheard, until they too, welcomed your unworded self, and now they whisper you back, night after night.

i could have been you, Danielle, or i could have been her, or her, or her, as this old dance of desecration continues to tear itself apart into the flesh of women & the dying lives of women.

now you have become inhale & starshine, the full moon’s smile as she treads lightly over water, forest-song & the velvet flight of birds at dusk- the nighttime scent of frangipani. but your deep bleeding pain…she rests with us, the living, and we will look after her, Danielle.

Danielle McLaughlin : in memoriam.

Danielle McLaughlin : in memoriam.

a tribute to Danielle McLaughlin, who was raped & murdered in South Goa on Tuesday, in the wake of Holi, the festival of colours which celebrate aliveness & love. for the past few years, i have spent many months in South Goa, and have driven past the open field where Danielle’s body was found countless times. Danielle’s story is yet another tragedy in our seemingly endless flow of women violated,…

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Amaryllis afternoon sun turns amaryllis to shine & membrane : once there was a deep deep water fish who became flower.

#POETRY #poems #poem #amwriting #zen #everymomentispoetry #practisingpresence #consciousliving #words #poetsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #writer #weareone #shamanic #languageoftrees #stopdeforestation #forestwisdom #motherearth #spilledink #winter #winterforest #shamanicwisdom #pachamama

#POETRY #poems #poem #amwriting #zen #poetsofinstagram #spilledink #arushatopazzini #instapoet #poetrycommunity #igpoets #instapoem #dream #dreaming #writersofinstagram #writer #words

how do trees speak ? a meditation.

time.