when walking

At first
the body of green breath and bird song
holds me as I walk
familiar resistance to move and sweat
fading as my rapid fire thoughts
space out
in time
to blue sky and wind.

Relaxation
and stillness
are a relief; medicine.
I feel my heartbeat quicken,
dog happiness panting beside me
hunting out
everything hidden
in grass and soil and fallen wood.

The wildness settles over me like a balm but I remember, suddenly,
that I am domesticated
raised to be an exile
to nature.

breathing, beating heart
and barking dogs
cannot keep anxious thoughts
at bay:
I am alone
and
a woman
and
the forest
is a perfect crime scene.

Memories of movies intrude
over the verdant surrounds
the woman's body there in the undergrowth,
a hand,
a torn skirt,
a bruised face
staring
dead-eyed
into camera
waiting for police, yellow tape,
and headlines.

I could die today, says my mind.
I could go
for a walk with dogs and die.
As easy as that.
As easy as breathing.

Flickering images of fate swarm over me.
My body is a question
my mind tries to answer
could my legs run fast enough?
Would my arms be strong enough?

The trees have thickened,
the spaces seem larger-
more sinister
the greens darker.
Can instincts
still overide
unending anxiety
how do you
plan to prevent
the unimaginable,
which is not
unthinkable.

A white-picket family
breaks through
the silence
of birdsong
of tree growth
up the path
ahead.
The father sails in front,
wife and daughter
the wake
signifiers
that, at least publically,
women can survive this man.

We witness each other
in passing
The sound of their
crunching feet fade
I wonder
how far the sound
of my scream
could travel
to reach them
Or if I'd be silent
With his disappearance
the safety
he briefly bestowed
dissolves.

Images of other men
past and future
skulk in the shadows
roaming
from a girl's forest grave 2 minutes away, projecting
out of pollsmoor prison
slithering
out of the
high-walled
high-end
hill-side
houses.

2 women and their dogs
arrive on the horizon
we wash past each other
like a tide of temporary safety
and recede.

My steps measure
only the distance
to the parking
rambling alone
has lost
any adventure

I arrive back
at the shiny red car
key ready.
look around.
alarm off.

My moms voice
mingling with relief
in my mind
unchanged from adolescence
Never walk alone
it's not safe.
Stay out of the woods.
Watch out for wolves.

hurt

how everything shrinks,
when heart closes it's petals
over my sadness.

empty

the rain falls slowly,
weak sun, wet grass, walkway glistens
with the empty sky.

introspection in the sun

To say I'm bookish,
is to say that flowers like
spring rain a little...

or, complicated,
like an old golden tiger
alone in a cage,

or so self- involved
that a tower of haiku
is made of my thoughts

before I can just
feel the sunshine, walk the dogs,
watch the green leaves move.

history lessons

you could spend your whole life weeping in mourning and horror from the history of violence by humanity,
and be out of time.
reaching back, crying again, for our blood soaked history.
in this era, while sometimes more subtle, still the forward echoes ripple across us all, directed still at those clothed in ways seen as less worthy of life: by skin, by gender, by age or identity.
the power pressing everyone downwards into pain unless by privilege you can resist or deflect for longer.
we have war in our souls and minds ready to manifest it.

winter freeze and thaw

Im not leaving here till I produce something on this page-
till I do something with this strange pain.

I can no longer tell if the pain is the last warm part of me alive in the ice,
or the epicentre of the freeze.

Everything has gone quiet and life is too loud. The meaning has suddenly flown south for winter; there is no more food.

Waiting on the conveyer belt of capitalism and patriarchy feels like the worst kind of living: what would arriving even be for?

I come back and touch others through my senses but they cannot seem to reach me in here where feeling has become looking and looking has become doubt.

At this rest stop in a long journey, I look back at the memory of living homeless in my own skin but here I sit- skin, self and thought together and apart.

positional

consider who you are
and where you stand,
and how you came to be there.

consider who held your hands as you took your first steps,
who held theirs,
and where those feet walked.

consider what your place
has meant
to you,
for others,
and those yet to come.