In the smallest corner of the world
A mountain draws up its knees
And makes room for crystal waters and soot pines,
melody rocks and grass snake burrows.
There, doe mother raises her velvet head
Eyeing warily the cusp of the trees
She sees them whisper and thin, then finally give over
To the pad of a footfall; a pilgrim’s soft step.
Returning to a land she had almost forgotten:
the babe of the bottomlands
Arrives home at last.
Grandfather Garter slithers up to her
Wraps himself gently, like a jewel at her throat
“You know what they’ll say when they see us together.”
And he wheezes like a twig at his own clever joke.
She cracks a smile like a buckey shining,
And the bullfrog of her belly grows round with a laugh,
“They’ve been singing that song since the very Beginning.”
Grandfather sighs and blinks his eyes; she was home at last.
Sinking her feet into the mud of the hollow
Her gaze touches on old precious things
The laurel, the hemlock, and poplars still quivering
They share the sun quietly, like a still cup of tea
“My darling, you’re silent...”
Grandfather garter touches his nose to her cheek,
“The bottomlands hold you. They will hold what you speak.”
She sighs and lifts her eyes, and the babe begins to sing:
“Through great cities I wandered
I was a woman for a while
Men would carve me from obsidian
Then ask me why I could not smile.
In their gardens I labored
But the dew would turn to rust
When the word for love is iron chain
All men will turn to lust.
What do you do when your path is at stake
When the gentleman rake sings his song
Where will you go when you’ve never been told
What’s a woman, when a woman’s alone?
Hung like curtains, I lingered
I heard howling in the hush
In the solitude of exile
There’s no wildness they can trust
I spent all my seasons
I held no coin to collect more
I could hear the call of ancestors
As twilight shook their bones
The heart grows with time, one is yours one is mine
So why am I lashed to your wheel?
And why let me go when you’ve never been told
What’s a woman, when a woman’s alone?
In my palace I trembled,
I resigned myself to die
Like the woman of this country:
A bitter laugh behind the eye - ”
Suspended in knowing the story’s cold ending
She pauses the song, her voice failing in spite
of the bottomlands beckon, the room for remembering,
the babe sits in silence, letting day becomes night.
Grandfather Garter tucks himself snugly under her chin
“My darling, your footfall arrived just this morning...
With all that you carry, in this place you’ll begin.”
