麻豆约拍

Root Your Words in the Earth

I bury my words in your womb, all stories,
and feathers, but you tell me it will not root
any trees. My words are barren in your belly.
You are the ground where we dig for resources,
the black of coal, the bling of gold.

You say we trample your belly where roots
stretch to birth trees that shade. A radio blares
in the background and the wires too are rooted
in earth. The verb, the verb, earth as verb,
our substance all mud, and grit, dust, and sand.

We bury our dead into you Lady Earth,
your sorrow is a saxophone鈥檚 wail, haunting.
We hear the songs of your languished erosion,
You a woman undulating with damaged hips,
a seer with limitless third eyes.

What is your song if not a lament for loss?
You who watched the graves of yesterday with us
when we were trapped in our homes as death
strut across our globe gathering bodies
like builders demolishing the carcasses
of dilapidated houses.

We watched fires burn trees in Australia,
and your earthquake spring larva tears and ashes
in Saint Vincent. These were your verbs, the salt
and pepper of your poetry Lady Earth,
the way your hurricanes chant down Babylon,

yet your parks and green land invite solace
and solitude. Yes I write on you too earth,
pencil made from wood, paper from the trees
whose roots burrow into you earth. But you say
we do not speak the same language.

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