wyrdwind

Original Sin

I suppose first

I’ll hit you with a list

of relevant scholars, no need

to take my word, by all means

educate yourself: Marija Gimbutas,

Riane Eisler, Charlene Spretnak,

and Merlin Stone. Towards the end

of the Bronze Age there was a shift—

earlier or later depending on the area—

a violent wind, a novel virus,

take that mass grave

recently revealed. Patriarchal pastoralists

so very concerned with the unchecked spread

of their herds and seed, sought to destroy

the forest.

Systems so sophisticated they mistook

millennia of patient, symbiotic cultivation

for “wild” or “unkempt.”

The merciless slaughter

of predominantly women and girls

from the entire region. Some boys and young males

who likely chose death over betrayal. The youngest

an infant son. Was that mercy? Valuables removed,

seeds tossed upon their corpses, a dead animal.

Did the men who survived

think they’d change the system

from the inside? We see real clear now

how that turned out, how many thousands

of times did this play out? To what

do intermittent good intentions amount?

Inside every woman

is a mass grave.

If you ever think

I’m being too harsh, my eye sharp,

consider the gaping silence

of more than half of humanity

as I decide exactly how much mercy

I think you deserve.

Preeclampsia

Mitochondrial Eve lived

about 200,000 years ago

give or take and to be clear:

their brains were just like ours.

So I ask

what is more likely, that “civilization”

began 6000 years ago,

or that men kill, steal, and lie?

Annihilate and corrupt out of jealousy?

How many silenced mothers?

What wisdom lost?

So men could play at God,

pretend to be our equals, superiors,

in the act of creation.

I think the fuck not.

They say Neanderthals perished

because their heads were too large,

excessive maternal mortality

decimated their numbers.

Their bodies couldn’t handle

building brains. A dangerous business.

You know they grew

because women were always keeping track

of extended family, inventing language,

and juggling tasks while raising babes.

We made that happen. We tended forests.

We didn’t cling to monuments, proof, our “mark”,

it lived and breathed all around us.

Everyone knew which woman you came out of,

the other women were there.

All this religion and pedantry,

scientists, politicians, CEOs, and nobility,

too big for the britches their women wash,

eyes ten times the size of their stomachs,

and not a man in sight

could faithfully manage

to put the work in, humble enough

to meet me in the garden.

Happy Families

Just get the roots in the ground,

quit fucking around, if She don’t

want it there, She’ll tell you. Simple.

The components of a fruit tree guild:

nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators,

pollinator attractors, pest repellents

and ground covers/mulchers.

Central element, fertilizer,

nutrient miners, insectary plants,

pest deterrents, chop-and-drop

where applicable. Find a spot

and get it done. Shit, use a stock tank.

Use several. You don’t have to grow out,

you can grow up.

Quarter of an acre is plenty enough,

corners and abandoned lots,

seed bombs. Oops did I

fuck up your lawn? Your

deadzone grass expanse? Oh shit,

there’s mint. How’d that get there.

Brambles bitch. Mystery flowers.

Would be a damn shame

if your excessive number of ruminants

came down with indigestion.

Don’t neglect

your natives, I favor

windbreaks of oak, coppiced alder—

which can aid in feeding chinampas,

that’s zones 4 on up so no excuses—

red osier dogwood and assorted

bog friendly berries. Acid lovers.

Birch.

Mind the slope, pH, and sun’s path.

Every day, at all times, walk the land.

Soil should never be exposed

or compressed. A forest

creates its own rain in a process

called transpiration.

Stabilizes water tables, sinks carbon,

seeds clouds.

The world is bankrupt on that front,

imminent bread basket collapse,

or shall I call them plundered cradles,

devastated ecosystems,

irreversible damage driven

by agriculture and industrial waste.

So go piss on that compost pile,

even shit recycles, give back what you took,

you belong

to the land and its creatures, all of them,

those relationships are what make you

a people. You are born

with obligations. You are the elected official.

You. Yes you. Do you live here? Show of hands,

that’s behavioral activation, every fucking day,

children do as you do, not as you say,

life doesn’t happen at a desk or at a screen.

Are you tired? So am I. A tiny thing

is still a thing. Go outside. Go outside.

Go outside and identify

three places, flora, or fauna who need help.

Look back in time, a tree’s reckoning,

that’s some distance, who’s missing?

No bears or wolves? Shame,

there’s no such thing as a weed or pest,

only imbalance. A broken loop.

Parasitic priorities.

Take responsibility.

What are you waiting for,

the divine right of kings?

Otherworlds

You could say

I’m pretty intense about plants.

The environment. Animals. Well,

long ago

during the sputtering remains of my youth

and early adulthood, somewhere in the third phase

amid a years long brutal depression,

wherein my limbs felt like leaden sand,

and every single word I spoke

took as much effort as hauling an anchor

from the Mariana Trench, and my chest

keened every single moment I drew breath,

and I wept and wept and wept,

I dreamt

walking through my brother’s house,

empty, a ghost, and as I passed

a door, I saw my reflection

distantly lit in a dark bathroom mirror.

I had hair.

As it is now in fact, perhaps not as much

white,

and an entire half of my naked body

was tattooed with branches and vines

in technicolor, both fruiting and flowering.

Shivering and writhing.

Never heard such a thing in all my life.

Before I could investigate,

I was called away. Deployed. Apparently

my mission was to find and wake

a Lord of the Earth, the one

I was bound to and responsible for.

No backup. No assist. No resources.

I had to get it done.

I flew over a barren landscape

such as the desert I grew up in, ravaged and rootless,

where the sun, soil, and water were all poison,

and entered a massive glowering cavern,

an unknowable chasm,

to call out into the unmade place

that it should learn from me its purpose,

and I mine.

I revived a mighty green beast,

green as the dawn through new leaves,

called Her forth from deepest shadow,

a Hadal zone.

Rainbow gems and precious metals

pebbled in Her armored hide, along Her back

light spilling and splashing through fountain-like,

so architectural these spine ridges

as humans could literally settle there.

She was enormous. A titan. Born

of dark waters and crushing Earth.

No matter the cost,

I had to protect Her.

When I woke, I remembered

that for a tree to both fruit and flower

you must graft a number of scions

onto desirable rootstock, otherwise

a tree exhibits this behavior on its own

only when under extreme duress,

such as environmental collapse.

And when I woke,

having crossed at last

the cursed slumber itself,

I found that I was somehow both

much, much older

and much, much younger

than my ordinary peers.

For everyone else

lifetimes had passed, we had nothing,

no language of experience in common,

whereas I had only just begun.

My Island

More recently,

my Ex disregarded

all my explicit warnings, wasn’t even looking

straight ahead, and drove the truck

off a cliff

into the ocean, I kicked out the window,

climbed around and jumped off the bed

onto some kinda

sea stack situation

and somehow Donkey Konged my way

onto a bright and cheerful boardwalk.

Gathering my wits I pulled a paper

outta nowhere and drew a map,

my property a distant compass star, and I explained

the precise shape of this new mass

to a mysterious onlooker. This shape,

as I began outlining the first coastal section

on the upper left, was like an anatomical heart

if you roughed it up a bit

or kinda a lot—like damn

no need to call me out like that—

and suddenly my map sprung to life,

became a little bird in flight.

I chased the mischief creature

along some kinda kaleidoscopic pub complex—

truly an excessive amount in one spot,

and to be clear I rarely drink, though

I thoroughly enjoy the pub atmosphere,

I wouldn’t say that I literally Heart them,

but I digress—

I breezed through

open doors and windows

into an ambered wood interior,

heard pleasing muffled chatter,

laughter and clinks in the next room,

and some man’s

very beautiful singing voice. That voice alone

enough to get you drunk. Them tingly thighs.

Sunlight poured

through every orifice, puddled

on the glossy wood, and I sensed

the distinct hover of a Mama

showing you baby pictures

of her Very Good Son.

I stood there and listened—

and listen,

the only acceptable response

is yes Mama I do hear him,

you taught him up right,

’cause he could be a rat bastard

but fact of the matter is

mama’s a mama and every mama

risked her life, her babies

been the only point

she’s allowed pride,

so you tell her good job

even if he comes home in a box,

that’s just manners,

but I digress—

Did my due diligence,

but I wasn’t there tryna snoop,

didn’t pursue the song to its source,

for though I’m highly curious, I’m not one

to derail a mission. On task.

I bowed out to go recover the truck,

for my family could only afford one vehicle,

and it doubled as the backup generator

for my mother’s oxygen when the power failed (often),

with or without my Ex’s body inside, I must

retrieve it before I did anything else,

but the tide had risen, gulls wheeled above, water

lapped my ankles,

the way I’d come was gone.

If I strove forward, gentle but insurmountable

waves pushed me back. I knew better

than to fight nature.

Just as I puzzled my reroute,

I was scooped up in a big net,

and this rather pushy promenade or…spirit seemed

to clutch me to its bosom. Such as it was,

shifting jumble of homes and businesses,

all the little people, pulse of the land beneath.

Like shit alright fine, you win.

Shimmied a bit in my new predicament,

idly wondering

if I’d just been abducted,

straight Shanghaied.

But it was such a fine day,

a most jubilant sea spray.

Finally a pair of fishermen

in funny squish caps

saw me

and scratched their heads.

They opted to bring me in,

and joy or fragile hope leaked from my eyes,

sweetly salted cheeks, and I don’t have these

two firm seals for nothing so

my next order of business was all,

ahem,

I presume

that you are some fisher-mans,

I too would like some fishes,

never mind what you expected

to find in this net, seafood

is in fact

my favorite.

Anyway, when I woke

and took my morning scroll, I stumbled upon

another distant (digital) shore,

that Polynesian lovers’ tale all random like,

alright,

I know when I’m being told.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Enter an origami plane,

battlefronts collide, a storm

across all of spacetime, dancing

across tipping points

wherever inspiration did strike.

My usual

backdrop of chaos and strife.

Just dubstep, death growls, trap, arias,

cellos and silence.

I broke through

to a crumbling place,

some conglomerate Tetris city’s dregs,

and I answered

a cursed boy’s

unintentional distress signal.

Brushstrokes heavy and frenetic. Dark.

Whenever he tried

to speak from the heart,

tell a girl he loved her,

she mutated beyond all recognition.

One immediately vomited and convulsed,

warped and unraveled into sand.

Another tried so hard to retain

her form, concept of worth, values

until she too devolved into

material riches. Jewelry and such. Gold.

So much. So much.

They fell through his hands.

All I could specifically identify

was pale eyes and a pale face

wasted with tears. Mute terror.

When I reached out

to collect his precious salt, give comfort,

my wings more than strong enough

to take a passenger—this little wisp,

perhaps a gremlin of sorts, a glitch,

not so scary as all that—

he started and scuttled away

like some cephalopod ink sploot.

Mischief creature.

Whatever his curse entailed, alas,

I hadn’t the chance

to address. Step one

would have been retrofit

secure attachment, establish

object permanence, evaluate

locus of control and repair or replace.

Yes, yes, I’m a deft hand at curses, courtesy

of my prickly and forbidding nature, big

and warm but just a lil stabby stab. Alas,

I remained

the unseen. Misunderstood. That one’s mine.

An old, old woman

suddenly beside me with an easel,

the two of us standing on jagged cement

at the edge of everything, she scowled

and said that I am not afraid

because my body is a prison,

that I’ll give no quarter

if he sets me free.

Talked mad shit, evaluated

whether or not I’d balk

or be cowed. As if I hadn’t spent

decades being Too Much, as if I’d grown

up into the kinda bitch wears a bra

or gives a fuck. She showed me the canvas

where she’d painted some primordial

darkness as a harrowing thrush

of nebula splatter ravens affixed

the branches of a gnarled tree,

crown to roots penetrating

every layer of reality,

springfire green streams

coursing up the trunk, motes

flickering, pulsating veins

through a blackened artery.

Behind closed lids, a feathered pair

of ultraviolet eyes in the sky. That old woman,

though her own eyes sparkled vicious approval,

her tone suggested I should be horrified,

apologize for my shameless spread, but inside

every woman

is a mass grave.