This Body is a Compass

This body is a compass
Ceremony and sacrifice
A vast waterside
Amniotic oasis

Secrets stacked in library spaces
Held together by umbilical systems

Threads of emerald green grass
Weaved conversations
It's the gestation of all life forms
When hills were the first ever churches
Say root, say strength

And what of the myths and mathematics
That could be read like poplars on trees
A vast horizon of leaves
And carriers of historic genes

This body is a compass

We used to kiss the brown of daylight
Look into water as a mirror
Not a mirage
Not 'unreal' or 'hallucinate'
Not 'Let this body be a sunken place

Roots and arteries overthrown
By artillery
Cages and theft
Value put on machinery over maternity

An army swarms -
This body is a compass

You broke through this hymen place
Ran rampant over valleys
Ignored peaks and red ripe warning signs
To stop

And how often this body has bled
In your arms
How the scratch and pull of 'stop'
Kept daylight from coming

It suffocates
The womb of the world unable to menstruate

Youve lynched the moon
Stolen the cycles
Made a conveyor belt rotation of
Minefields

Collapse of foresight
Civil unrest
Old famines
Slow and steady decline
Minerals mingled with mercury
Foreign objects searing this delicate chemistry
Dead tissue in mother belly, once a 'one-day' baby

And now every war is the same war –
This body is a compass

We altered the laws
The alter of stars turned away
From facing us
So we clawed down the skies

But before that
We carried the planets on our shoulders
They used to carry us with their fullness

This body is a compass

Speak healing to the body
Throw your head back
Holy
Commune with the sun
Caress with hands on ocean skin
Until they're medicine numb

This body is a compass