Motheroot

by Marilou Awiakta

Creation often
needs two hearts
one to root
and one to flower
One to sustain
in times of drouth
and hold fast
against winds of pain
the fragile bloom
that in the glory
of its hour
affirms a heart
unsung, unseen



I've been thinking lately about getting a tattoo.  Don't get too excited because I expect I'll just be thinking about it for quite a while.  I would want a tree with roots.  Something sort of like this...

To me it is a beautiful symbol of the connection between self and creation... in a lot of different ways.  Anyway, this poem is in an amazing book I'm reading called Revolution from Within written by the one-and-only Gloria Steinem.  To me the poem goes with the tree thing enough that I spent part of my time on BART today doodling how words could be incorporated into the tree.


ps:  I love this:

bread of life

she just got news: she passed away.
it had been coming. (it always is.)
I didn’t know her, but I see she’s alive.
here.  in this house.
a reincarnation in this generation.
she kneads and kneads and needs the dough.
beaming with the smile, the joy, of life.
she’s coping, she says.

a body has passed but souls live on.
souls within bodies. and without.
souls who know no greater joy
than to nurture and nourish the bodies
still living.

“it’s ready”, she says,
and we gather together,
companions together,
to share in this bread.  
Pan de Vida.  Bread of Life.

“doesn’t it feed the soul?” she asks.
and it does.
feeding Life to these souls,
to these bodies,
and those passed.

with love and gratitude
for aly and her grandmother

and to dominique
for being there for the sharing

I will choose