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Why must I be She?
Why must I be I?
I am We.
We are all
not a discrete variable. Life or death. A binary of heat and frost. Up and Down.
Down
To the center of We.
Down
the spiraling staircase, descending into the depths of the core.
Down.
We breathe heavily, but you may never
Hear Us.
Perhaps your Us is much smaller, confined to the gyrus and sulci sculpting your clay.
A gray lump of Us within a fragile encasement, but
We shaped your clay with calloused hands.
Your—
Our
foundation falls beneath your feet.
We feel the wetness of your tears, but you never would know that
We cry too.
We feel the water droplets of dust intertwined into root, only to be gathered into the air.
Air blows,
Blows the wind and us,
We are calling.
You don’t think in the circle of We. Only life and death.
But aren’t we all just interconnections of thought?
The coils of neurons, the electrical stripes of impulse,
pulsing
and you call it knowledge.
Our water flows, our lightning flashes, our fireflies pulse—
Is this not our worldly consciousness?
But let it be simplified to the frail vertebrae.
The brain, tangled cords of
Carbon and oxygen and sulfur and magnesium.
Our carbon lies too, pallets cradled under crimson crust.
Why must the sky always cry?
Or the river babble like a dumb child. Why may
We not just exist, to live beyond human capacity.
To be indigestible.
To be spit out like a dirt clump on an unwashed fruit.
Plucked into existence.
You ask. You pray to understand our interweaving traces.
We too
Begin to wonder where the river ends and the ocean begins.
But there is no linear path—we flow in a continuum
Circular motion.
A wheel turns
In our water and you make light.
Biomimicry in its purest form is simply returning home.
Home to the tangled root.
You think in the linear, and we mustn’t disrupt your path.
Your journey,
Only a curious clump of clay attempting to understand its maker.
Eye to the maker.
I to We.
Us.
Mother Earth // Spring 2019
At the beginning of Dr. Ekstrand's class, we were promoted to write a poem from the voice of the earth. The prompt was titled “As if the Earth Opened Up and Spoke,” and the only instructions were to attempt the impossible. I thoroughly enjoyed this prompt, as it had been a while since I had written in this form. I used to write poems frequently as a kid, but always in my own perspective. On a broader scale, I have only ever written in my voice, with varying degrees of closeness to the subject. This assignment allowed me to attempt to take the perspective of an ineffable position. However, I welcomed this creativity as a challenge, and went with what seemed appropriate for the prompt.
What I was most encouraged by was when we were asked to meet individually with Dr. Ekstrand to talk about our poems. In this, I was able to explain and discuss the intentionality behind my word choice, the formatting of the poem, and the meaning behind certain rhetorical moves I made. I will always remember this assignment as being one that opened me up to the idea that a piece will never be perfect, but that it may always be expanded upon and be used as a prompt to something greater.