Mother Ocean, 
We cannot swim. 
 
We carry you inside, 
though we are dense, 
asleep.
 
We have waited thousands of years 
for one sacred sound, 
for the one that was before the Word,
the one that would awaken 
the waves within. 
 
A sound without shape, low, 
closer to human
further from culture, 
almost a vowel 
but gone to the wild
before even the throat 
can catch it.
 
The alchemical abracadabra,
empowering our capacity
to swim on shore.
 
On the floor
we explore,
moving to the pace
of the underworld,
to the memory
and visitation
of snakes 
and sparrows
and lizards.
 
The traffic outside
continues. Politics
fracture friendships. 
Fear threatens
to limit all freedom.
 
But Octopus frees  
all inhibition,
torches us with  
compassion
and we weep without
sorrow.
 
It doesn’t matter
where we go next.
 
For a moment of eternity
we have eyes 
that see through our skin
and limbs
in all directions.

My body of government
is not in control.
The Democratic Unknown
stirs in the center 
of my body, 
widens and unfurls,
directs its constituents
like the conductor
of an internal orchestra.
 
The Song of the Cell 
emits the inaugural address
that tunes each instrument –
 
Hear in the light
Here in the light
Am I in the light?
Can you see me?
Do you understand?
Come closer.
I am the Light
I am the Word.
Every Body,
Circle around.
Can you hear me?
I will lay down for you now
I will demonstrate
Sound is the Light
Dwell in delight
Look at that.
 
The Song swims behind 
and above and all around 
the twisting and untwisting
of the heart,
the spiraling of the blood,
the involutions of the brain
and peristalsis of the intestines,
the fullness of the liver,
the pulsing of the cock 
and the kidneys, the pussy
and the tongue.
 
It sings into the pond 
of the bladder,
the chalice of the uterus,
the flowering of the lungs.
 
It ripples into the filtering
of the lymphs
and the mycelium of the
fascia; 
 
rhythms the fierce sweet
gall bladder, thymus, spleen,
stomach and appendix, 
 
and carries through the shields 
of skin and pericardium
its infinite resonance 
with the serpentine spine.
 
The Song pulls them all
towards itself as they 
with the elements 
and the seasons
celebrate its
symphony
and like a flock 
of migrating birds
tell a story of Health.
 
The story tells of gills 
and wings and fur
and teeth and claws
and scales
and a tail 
that dwell in our cells
and spiral the galaxy
and round the bend
from night to day,
 
keep tilting
in their negotiations
for balance,
seeking belonging,
a home within a home
branching
between other bodies
an umbilicus of connection
to the cosmos
a longing to know
this earth and its soils
and to thrive
with purpose.
 
Our body of government
is not in control.
We the people,
who fetch wood,
carry water 
and vote.
We are nourished
by something greater
than our laws,
some thing that forms 
and re-forms,
consents and dissents.
 
Other bodies of government
transmit understanding.
In the darkness they,
too, contain vigil 
for movement.
No body of government
is in control.
Only to power states 
of discovery
wonder and awe.
We must adapt,
innovate,
listen to the land,
listen to 
everything.
 
We hear the quake 
of the ancients
and it frightens us, 
as it should.
They did not suffer
so we could densify
into obedience,
crystalize 
into quartz.
 
Make mistakes,
make love.
Ascend 
and descend.
For all our gravity, 
we are stars. 

Only my body can tell me
I am not this body.
Only my body
when it moves 
 
can expand my awareness
to something else.
 
It’s like when I reach an arm 
Somehow
 
To find I am watching 
my arm reach
 
and I don’t have an answer here, 
it’s just that today
my arm slips out first 
with eyes of its own,
 
and parts a membrane, 
and curls back 
somehow
to gather the rest of me.
 
And I follow my arm 
which makes no logical sense
and takes no linear path
but this surrender allows me 
 
my first breath 
of awe
 
As this body sheds me
Of me
Shares me with me
separate and together
soul and teeth
tendrils and stars.
And just like that 
 
I’ve changed
the boundaries of love.