Living the Dream

Father Sky is gray with grief.
Mother Earth turns to fold
the mothers in its arms.
Coffins are closing over babies
held against the breasts of the women.
Where do you stand, brothers,
with us or without us?

Why do you wish to annihilate us
as you strike out in anger,
with guns to heads and bellies,
to backs, to wombs?  Cover us
with logs, with earth, with blankets,
with garbage, with kisses of death.
But we shall rise, open fisted,
Waving our veils like banners,
our babies’ blankets like flags,
our arm bones holding the skeletons
of our children, up to the sky
to be seen.  We are giving notice
that our bones rattle like the tail
of the snake that is curled and ready.

Have you ever been given surrender
on the skull of your child, born or unborn?
Did you think to win peace
when the peacemaker is gone?
How deep can you bury us
and think we do not still give birth
to recompense?  Think you, to end
the cellular connection between women,
who are related by spirit, so close
we all feel the hack and the hell
of ever giving birth to a nation of men?

Where are you, brothers, fathers, uncles,
that you would not take the fist,
the knife, the gun, the penis
of your kin who would kill us?
In your quiet indignation you irk
the gods and the goddesses who gave
you right to be here at all, to share
in this season of women-spirit rising
above your boardrooms, your bars,
your beasts of burden to bare our bones
and seal our breasts from your suckling.

Father Sky is gray with grief.
Mother Earth turns to fold
the mothers in its arms.
Coffins are closing over babies
held against the breasts of the women.

Father Sky is growling gruesomely.
Mother Earth turns inside out
in order to evict evidence.
Coffins are being carved from cedar
to hold the hopes of the world.
Stand up for us or stand alone.
The world is waiting for the whip.

Tags: Poems //