Her curves cannot be flattened
nor her vengeance.
My dream of earth
is not bottomless enough
or wild enough to understand her
and I am not equal to the task
of her governance
until I explore the terrain,
learn the history and constitution
of she whose ink is wet
and has no writing.

Mother Earth is me
and though I occupy this body
at times better than others
my lips belong to her
as do my elbows and shoulders
and guts and veins.

Once I was a bride
with a dress that trailed behind me
always with bare feet and braids
and lilacs in bloom
but the children spiraled out
and the milk poured over them
and I became something else.

Still I never listened to those
who told me it was too dangerous
to love and birth and teach and heal
without the hand of culture
or media or institution
and once one took her life
I knew I could bury anything
except the narrative that is mine

because my body is of earth
and knows things I don’t dare
deny – the intelligence of the senses
and the catalogue of evolution,
fragile as a teardrop.

Only Mother Earth knows
this skin, this silky grass,
this shale and this clay,
how and when the daffodils
will return, and the geese,
and what they take with them
when they go.

She knows
what the body is for,
for she and it are global,
both and all of everything,
trans-tribal, no delusions,
humming through memory.
I am a visitor.
I can treat her badly,
and I do.

But her belt understands the arc
of time and when undone it
unleashes the boundlessness
of generosity in allowing
each next step, for as long
as she wishes.

Mother Earth signals no truce.
Though sometimes, she nods,
it is good to rest, especially
after so much swimming
and flying and burning,
she only takes me by the hand,
and there is pleasure in this bark
and stone and apple crunch,

and while we are together,
until she consumes
my body entirely,
she accompanies me further
and beyond
into uncharted territory.