A poem inspired by ‘Gravel’ by Mary Oliver.
One day I am going to die.
One day the soft ochres of earth will hold the weavings of my yesterdays. Spring will churn buttercup & couch-grass from the string of my bones. Honey-lilac heather from the meat of my animal. The cormorants coal ink wings will gush with the echo of what might’ve been my name. Wind, will hold the sound of me, now & now & now & now beating an old story into choppy Irish seas. Birch, will mark my rupture. Thrush will sing my reverence to the long dawn song.
And ‘I’ will be nothing but a reciprocal gift. A giving. A sharing.
Body will be of root & rock.
Self, a palimpsest of lands dreaming.
One day I am going to die.
All the sour moments of unawareness disintegrate into star dust. Time. Whoever, whatever you are. Tallest of tall queens, galloping like wild horses onward through tomorrow & tomorrow.
What will I make of your hours: golden sands liquor in the cerulean chalice. How can I shape your offering? Violet stone worn to sand: time mulled by waves of torment, or joy? Hands that have the courage to feel. How will I mark this passage? Hematite red, chalk white, iron gall black?
Let this body be a song of transformation. Let this body feel with such intensity that the brittle trappings of our separation explode like the dandelion seed, like dusty stars out into a sea of uncertainty. Let me soak into my porosity like water through the rock. Lay bare the truths of my aliveness. Let me taste & suck & make & smell & beat & drum & cook & cry. Let love swell like a mother tide within me. Let me sweat & bleed the beauty of this life into life. Let me dream ferociously. Let me stand in ancient fields and drink the warm cool rain. Let me surrender. Let me always remember.
I know this world as I know myself.
How could I ever be afraid.