What the Muses Leave Behind

“Our species is committing suicide – that is a choice…”        -- Terry Tempest Williams Death might be just a holy rend                      a stitch of good luck, a weeping of snow melt. How resurrection prefers dirty water and pain, I’ll never understand. Her instructions comprise                    a tiny storm of mercy– full of crows and bottle flies,                                                                to debride the corpse,                                                    and morning light              supple as fish bellies                                                                           to code a new practice,                                        day in and day out                    and a renaissance of questions,                      a splash of breath rinsed in tea leaves and sea air,  until                     the blood and semen find their legs                                                              to dance

-- Women's March first anniversary 2018 Crone privilege abides here in the steady pour of the Mississippi. Her laughter, belly deep, shadows grackles and gulls, her inconvenience, forever indentured with her shoals, and her easy is fickle, full of silt and minnows. Crone privilege abides here. Out of the modern drudge, we know these truths: Wisdom is love, love is patience, patience takes its time. On the shoulders of old women, it pushes boulders up a hill, Defying the Sisyphean habit – they will roll it up and over, be done with that. Crone privilege abides here. Call us queen bees, a riot of pussies, hand maidens over done. Maya Angelou made her heart into a mantra, now when we straighten our backs, the chrysalis splits wide, and like cream on whiskey              we rise.

Maybe you believe this land is a tamarind rind                                          or geode hide,                                  or conundrum stubborn. Maybe it reminds you of a sleeping old dog, growling and mean with dreams of glory days and the chase. These hills and muddy folds of dormant agriculture                                                                 never heard of Persephone. Even Eden is a piece of gossip since John Deere and Massey Ferguson. The busy on I-80, chases the suppose to happen and meant to do,                            away from effigy mounds and thunderbirds. Maybe you feel inclined to follow January’s repose, even forgive its sloth.                               And since eagles are the sentinels today,  let them gather up the few confused bats, awakened in the mercurial slivers of April before Ground Hog’s Day. Don’t worry about the details now - We will meet them again in the corn and the cheddar.