Category: Poetry

What I understand to be true is that it’s ok to begin the new year motivated, inspired, and ready to go. It’s ok to feel hopeful. It’s ok for the new year to begin as a blurry line between one day and the next. It’s ok to slide in gently, with soft edges and flowers in your hair. It’s ok to arrive confused and out of sorts, to have really no firm idea. It’s ok to feel afraid or trepidatious or perhaps somewhat uncertain. It’s ok to arrive in love, alone, or somewhere in between. Ok to arrive feeling slightly beige, or perhaps you are fluorescent. Ok to be angry, or sad, or falling apart. The day will arrive to greet us and hold us all the same.

What I understand to be true is that change is necessary, inevitable, but it’s normal to feel pangs of hanging on. It’s ok to not want to let go at the same time as you want things to arrive. It’s ok to be new, and also to be not quite ready for the newness. Or not right now at least.

What I understand to be true is there are many metrics for success, some without signs that are outward facing. That the numbers being lower, the bank account less than plump, all the sums we’re doing adding up to slightly less, does not necessarily mean that the thing isn’t working, or that you’re not ok, or that something needs to fixed but instead might mean that you’ve taken time to nurture yourself, that priorities have shifted, that you’re busy with your family, or caring for something or someone or yourself, or simply have been outside more and inside less. Numbers cannot be, are not at all, the measure of a full and well lived life.

What I understand to be true is that life can be brutal and hard, and beautiful and tender all at once. That death and aliveness are intertwined and dependent on each other’s gain. That is seems like these ideas compete, but in fact there’s space for both. That sometimes all that we can do is bear witness, say I’m sorry, I know it’s hard. That it’s ok to take your tears to the trees, and the moss and the rivers and the ocean. Maybe the ocean is salty as the way to keep our tears a secret and connect us all the same?

What I understand to be true is that unused creativity becomes energy without productive purpose. That the forces of imagination are the elements of life speaking aloud, arriving in the tiny and the beautiful. That the gentle tapping of a call to do and follow something that you love is an exercise in courage, in thought expressed as color, or words, or hands in the soil, or reins in the hand, or however complicated or simple it may be. It’s worth it and seems important to say strongly and out loud, it’s worth it and so are you.

What I understand to be true is that I hear my heartbeat in hoofbeats. That I find the rhythm of my blood in the movement of four feet. That I have the capacity to fly and still be connected to the ground.

What I understand to be true is if you insist on living in a box that’s too small for you, sooner or later it’s either the box or the body that breaks. That if it’s the body that breaks the box, it can be painful for the mind to catch up. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves the time to breathe more gently, hold our edges more lightly and move out of the way of a process that’s already caught us in its flow.

What I understand to be true is that teaching is a process of exchange, a reciprocal conversation. A weaving of threads. A cycle of renewal and upliftment. That in the process of teaching and of learning, all and both are challenged but not diminished, supported but not suppressed, heard and open to hearing in equal amounts.

What I understand to be true is that wonder is a portal to care. That to share the experience of awe is to multiply it by a thousand. That to walk in delight is a form of activism, especially when expressed, encouraged, and exchanged.

What I understand to be true is that we are designed to sense and feel our way, not think our way, through life. That we aren’t supposed to control, constrict, and contort experience in attempts to keep us safe. That that form of safety is a falsity. That a feeling body is a vital one, that to have a thin skin is to be open to all the measures of beauty that are free to be experienced, the hardships free to be witnessed and transformed, and that both are present to declare that we are all owed equal space on hallowed ground.

What I understand to be true is that size is not a sign of might. That the tiny Locust can devastate a land several states wide. That the smallest of Krill is required to sustain the vastness of the ocean. That the Mantis Shrimp, an underwater creature the size of your thumb has the best eyesight on any creature on the planet. That the Water Bear can hold its breath indefinitely, be boiled in water (and survive), is essentially indestructible, all the while quietly going about its business in a body you’ve probably never heard of.

What I understand to be true is that my heart breaks regularly in the battle between economics and environment. That when we talk about it and say, yes, it always goes like this, that things will change, I understand. But I am sad for what gets lost in the meantime while we finally work it out.

What I understand to be true is that most people wildly, undoubtedly, enthusiastically underestimate their worth. That they tolerate what they shouldn’t, listen to what they needn’t, give energy to the things that keep them stuck.

What I understand to be true is that, sometimes, I want to take people by the shoulder, shake them, and say to them very loudly, do you know how wonderful you are? Please refuse to live in a skin too small that someone else requires you fit into.

What I understand to be true is that the arts are part of what has saved me. That poetry is a portal to another planet, that writing is a way to make sense of my experience and to express that in a tangible form. That to play with pencils and art and colour is not the domain reserved for the young but a practice as essential as breathing, as nourishing as food, as enlivening as cold wind on hot cheeks.

What I understand to be true is that friendship is the bloodline you choose, the seat you always place your bag on to keep free for the person that makes you laugh til you weep, giggle til you snort, ugly cry, except with them they do not see the ugly. The person with the shoulder the shape of the side of your head, the arms just wide enough to hold you in a full embrace as though they were made to measure just big enough to keep you in a swallow.

What I understand to be true is that dogs share a specific form of joy expressed as circular vibration, a show of waggling ripples all the way from top to tail. A whirling dervish of delight that requires only your presence and kind words.

What I understand to be true is that we don’t always get it right. That there really is no right. That sometimes, the best that we can do will be viewed by future versions of ourselves as not ok, but the practice of being kind really is the only end.

What I understand to be true is that sometimes, walking and talking is a softer cure for conversation than face to face speaking will allow. That flowers in the house are always worth the effort. That a kitchen table well used and full of paint and pencils and well-loved books is the right way to use a table, even if it looks slightly messy there at times.

What I understand to be true is that our ancestors whisper their thoughts inside us, and we are all at once the future ancestor of someone whose thoughts we’ll whisper into ears just the same, even long after it’s been forgotten that we ever had a name.

What I understand to be true is that planting trees is always a good idea. That the trees always talk back. Of course, they do.

What I understand to be true is that to have your heart broken and rebroken is normal and expected. That it’s through the experience of many tiny deaths that we get to know that we’re alive, and we’re ok. That’s it’s a good idea to check in with people and see if they need a hug. That many people feel alone. And maybe we can play with being alone together, so we’re not alone at all.

What I understand to be true is that family is precious. That there’s a specific softness of skin between the hair and the cheeks that’s mine for kissing. That family is made, not born, that it creates its own form of compound interest with regular deposits, and is a privilege that requires energy to maintain.

What I understand to be true is that individual freedom is dependent of the freedom of the collective. That there is no mine and not yours, no yours and not mine. That as creatures we are cooperative, that the universe is friendly, and to experience anything that sits outside that as an ‘other’ is an aberration to this universal law.

May we all stay true to the essence of our own aliveness.

May we make a daily practice of wonder, of kindness and of care.

May we tread the earth lightly.

May we recognize our privilege and act in service of those who do not have the same.

May your new year be peaceful and happy.

What I understand to be true is that everyone deserves this.

With love,

xx Jane

I was feeding my horses when I first noticed the song float into my brainspace.

Where The Wild Roses Grow, the song by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds featuring Kylie Minogue, followed me round. I found myself humming her, singing her out loud, whispering her tune, often only realizing so when I was already halfway in song.

I woke with the lyrics in my head and found them still present in the moments when drifting off to sleep. Days later, she remained the go to tune that my lips would turn to in the seconds they were left in silence.

Soon enough, I began to pay proper attention. After all, if this song was insistent on following me round, the creative powers that be must have a bigger plan for us.

I watched the music video from 1996, read more about the origins of the song. A murder ballad. A genre of music I reflectively understood to have heard but never thought to give a label.

A ballad itself is a narrative song. Santi Elijah Holley, a music writer and author writes:

“Murder ballads is what we call the sub-genre of music that comes from ballads. Ballads date back centuries, to 15th, 16th century Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland… an oral tradition where people would take their local mythology, their local stories, their true stories, their crimes of passion, and tell these long, long ballads … these long stories.”

The migration of Europeans to North America saw the murder ballad evolve, from a predominantly oral tradition, to a written one that went on to influence early American blues and folk music and show up in many other places in the years after.

Part of why this took me so long to write was I found myself wrestling equally with a sense of fascination and repulsion. The music video is a work of art. The music itself, sublime. I was, am enamoured.

And as with all good art, Where The Wild Roses Grow touched a place of deep discomfort that for me that speaks to the everyday vulnerability of women in the culture and society we’re a part of.  An uneasiness I continue to look directly at and sit with, despite inward disturbance and lack of answers.

Shortly after, a second story slid into my mind. Skywoman Falling, the creation myth told by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass. A relief to think about in opposition. A story of indigenous wisdom that illustrates the responsibility that flows between humans and the earth.

I sat with the two, a murder ballad on one hand, a creation story in the other.

The idea of womanhood resting firmly in between. Of ribs, of soil, of bitten apples.

I thought about the creation stories I’d grown up with. What was it I needed to kill off, or to put it bluntly, murder, in order to live in the body of a woman of the form I want to be? That I want others to be free to be?

And in the same breath, what is it that I need to create, to step into, to breathe her into life?

This week’s poem was my adventure in playing with those two parallel forces. A little longer coming than usual, which feels understandable and appropriate for words seeking this path to be birthed back into life.

Of Soil, Salt & Sea: Good Girl Falling

1.

This begins with the body of a woman. She is falling, upward gazing, through a sky who’d forgotten its tune. She forgets, as she falls, there was ever anything besides falling. She forgets, as she falls, there was ever anything except the feeling of reaching, and missing. She forgets, as she falls, there’s a purpose for a body, other than the purpose of surviving.

2.

Moments after dying, she is watched. Her eyes, deep pools of ink. Her body, a space between notes. Her insides, a vanishing. Her lips part in song, a whisper, tiny as an echo. Poured through the space between worlds. The distant and yet heard howl of the women within, a sign of a threshold uncrossed.

3.

It was the kelp that cradled her first. Arms outstretched. One became five, five became ten, ten became many. The expert fingers weaving salty braids in hair now moving as applause. It felt good to be held, even though she’s unsure what was holding. It felt good to notice, even though she’s unsure, what was noticing.

4.

The silent audacity of kelp, to move like wanton women. Who gave them permission to swirl and sway? Who gave them permission to flow with the current as though they, themselves, created it? The kelp laughed, heard her thoughts. She watched their chlorophyll hips let go. She felt her unwilling sides release as her eyes drank in and listened. She imagined- felt- the holographic imprint of unwanted, unconsented hands ungripping her sides, consumed by salt and sea.  She felt her body join the sway, a stingray, arching, and curling, arching and curling, a belly button moving, arching and curling, pulled by amniotic string. It felt good to move. To have nothing to lose. To be free to decide what to let go of and what to let stay.

5.

It was the stitches, the stories, that gave way first. The words bound up flesh. The connective tissue; connecting of cells, of time, of space. Connecting the intuitive and the imagined. Threads of generational weaving, of once felt future potential residing as physical memory in muscle. A patchwork, fibrous heirloom, the water dissolving words to ink, pages to blank. The water, massaging, releasing the tales trapped in flesh, to dissolve in the wilds of sea.

6.

Confused by the salt, unmoored by the movement, the Good Girl came out next. They watched each other, circled, The Good Girl and The Woman, circling and swirling, swirling and circling, a half mix of familiar and a someone you can’t quite place. From the Good Girl to The Woman, she handed back her rib, her fingers at once feeling for the hole of open flesh unknowingly unsealed at her side. In her palms, The Good Girl placed the dirt, adding stain to hands and feet, the essence of creation, to which she’d never claimed. In her spine, The Good Girl placed the Kauri, a tree of strength and courage. You’ll need this, she whispered softly, placed an apple in her pocket, and with that she sank away.

7.

It was the need for air that brought her to the surface. The body of a woman, upward rising, towards a sky busy remembering its tune. She lay on her back before a moon that hung unarmed, unprotected, defenceless, and not needing of defences all at once. She lay on her back, spine strong as a canoe, water gently undulating towards land. The woman felt comfortable in the silence and the darkness. To always need the lights on, she thought firmly, is a betrayal to a starry sky requiring black.

8.

This ends with the body of a woman. Her eyes, deep pools of ink. Her body, a space between notes. Her insides, a reckoning. She is walking, upward gazing, with a body that’s remembered its tune. Her lips part in song, a siren call, loud as an echo, splitting the space between worlds. The present and far heard chant of the women within, a sign of a threshold crossed. In her pocket, she reaches, takes hold of the apple. She bites, twists the stem, the pin of a grenade, pulls it out and flicks it, her barefoot feet a saunter as she slowly walks away.

It was early. Sometime around 5am. And I did the thing that someone in between worlds should only do if they wish to speed the transition between the liminal and the concrete; I reached my hand from underneath the covers, grabbed my phone and turned it on.

Ping.

A text from my friend Kathy.

Ronnie has sent you a message on Facebook, she said. She’s worried you might not see it. Please read it, it’s important.

I felt my stomach do a flip.

Don’t worry, another message followed, as though to read my mind. It’s nothing bad.

The luminous and light-footed Ronnie is someone I’ve never met in person and yet am fortunate to be friends with through the threads of conversation that weave us all online.

How to describe Ronnie? The perfect words have yet to come. So, let’s say she has skills of communication beyond the ordinary. A person whose mind traverses the thin places that some of us near the edge of, but never step right through.

Her message arrived by audio:

‘Hey Jane, it’s Ronnie. It’s 10:18am here, a beautiful frosty morning. I’m just driving to work. I hope you can hear this. You popped into my thoughts. This felt like a grandmother, or a great grandmother. She wanted to pass on how proud she is of you, but also for showing another side of you, another part of your passion. Cliché, but true. Your true self.

And I want to say that some of this comes from your lineage- and I think this is part of her essence- the words. The poetry. This could be recent- actually wait, I’m just going to have to pull over now- but it seems it goes back through generations. So, the words, your words coming through, are those of the generations also, as much as they are your own being, your own essence, your own self. The generations coming through you.

It’s like the Russian dolls, you are part of the Russian doll set. They are adamant with what they’re saying.

The female aspect is coming through strongly because it wasn’t always allowed. Their voices weren’t allowed. So, this is healing. It’s old things, old wanting’s that are coming through you. Their desires, their strengths. A strength they are also sending you.

I hope this makes sense and I hope you get this. Let me know if it resonates. My voice is standfast firm as I’m speaking. It’s a surety, it’s a strength, also softness. But they tell me this is not a time for that. It is a time for strength.’

The message hit me with a certain bittersweetness. My family line is not one with which I am familiar, a broken chain of falling outs and separations that occurred long before my physical form landed on this earth.

I cannot give you names, much less know the faces of anyone even two steps down my line. I have never been told them and for some reason it’s never felt appropriate to ask.

I miss people that I’ve never even known.

I ring my friend Kathy.

When you think of connecting with your ancestors, I asked her, what does that mean to you?

I continued on.

For me, I never think of anyone in my direct line. Connection to the ancestors for me skips beyond anyone of concrete form. It’s an energetic, even spiritual, conversation.

For someone to mention a connection to a great-grandmother brought a strange comfort. I opened my computer, clicked on the file of a poem I wrote a year ago, called The Stories We Arrived With.

The poem that reminded me I want to write.

Some lines for you now.

***

Sometimes I wonder
what stories I arrived with
what whispers
and unrequited lusts
dance in my blood
unfinished

or perhaps the line of beings
that came before me
knew
that I had to arrive for the
book to find its ending
the chapter to continue
or the sentence to find the word it needed
but couldn’t quite remember.

I feel…
the unspoken words
the frustration of intelligence and desire
trapped within walls that lacked freedom
whose conversations only made calls for obedience.

***

I’ve already written about this, I think to myself. I already know this to be true.

The women of my line, talking through the black ink of my pen.

I was going to share with you the full version of the snippet of the poem I shared above, but I decided to write something quite different. I wondered, what really lies behind the constrained voices of the women in my line?

What unrequited lusts do dance in my blood, unfinished? What words have I not been brave enough to write?

I considered as I sat, pen in one hand, paper in another.

I thought about where I draw inspiration from. From nature.

I thought about feminine representations of the sensual and seductive, how they express in the world around us.

I thought about the strength that Ronnie had mentioned. How the female force, the expressive, the courageous, and even the erotic is something that has been censored, suppressed, and not allowed.

What would the women choose to write through me today?

The poem that came together for you now.

Because Evening Primrose Sweetens Her Nectar When She Senses The Buzzing Of The Bee

Because Evening Primrose sweetens her nectar when she senses the buzzing of a bee, we know that blood becomes syrup with the steady vibration of desire, a skin that’s toffee to the tongue.

And when I say sweetness, I mean sweet like Cobra Lily, the siren song scent consuming, enclosing, knees folded, wrapped round, arms reached, enticing, at the same time allowing no escape.

And when I say sweetness, I mean like Portuguese Sundew, seductive and sticky, heated, adhesive, digesting, engulfing, dissolving, inevitable decimation, desecration, the necessary dance for future blooms.

And when I say Primrose, I mean a namesake disclosing a life short lived in the dark. While some say the bloom of the primrose is wasted on the night,

others slowly lick the spoon in reply,

saying to no one in particular out loud,

if we’re to risk the sting of the bee,

let us do so in the presence of honey.

Because the Sperm Whale uses sonic sound waves to create aesthetic maps of sounded out sight, we know we can dance and swirl, circle, encircle, sing to life the fragments of lust existing right now, in this moment as unseen song lines in our mind.

And when I say sing to life, I mean how notes swooned their way to the lips of Nina Simone, breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel, sent out as sounds that reached the ear as a kiss, that’s deliberate, good and slow, the rally call for a swaying body seeking only the movement of another to together make its own.

And when I say lust, I mean, the way a finger traces ribs of bone and skin and bone and skin and bone and skin down to the soft space before the hips to rest, or perhaps not.

And when I say dance, I mean the way sea dragons swim side by side through the water, mirroring each other’s body, a slow dance taking place as evening light begins to fade.

While some may say it’s impossible to sound a vision to life,

others continue to trace the outline of notes in the sky,

saying to no one in particular out loud,

if desire starts as thought vibration in the cells

let it be the insistence of our song that calls it into sight.

***

This poem draws on real behaviours in nature and weaves them into imagined understandings of how they might express in human form.

The nectar of the evening primrose does sweeten with the presence of a bee. Hers is a flower that only blooms at night, found wilted in the morning by the sun.

The Cobra Lily and the Portuguese Sundew are both carnivorous plants. The Cobra Lily releasing a sweet scent to draw its prey.

The Sundews skin stick and tacky to the touch, trapping those who seek to touch, the enzymes produced between the plant and the catch creating a production of enzymes that are necessary for the flower of the plant to be able to bloom.

The sperm whale send out beams of sound to create a mental image of that which she seeks to know, a literal soundscape that allows her to see without the use of sharp enough eyes.

Sea dragons, they do dance, in the same way I described.

And Nina Simone, just because. Hot chocolate to the ears, birds flying high, you know how I feel.

An earth, a landscape swathed in strength and flirtation and survival and thriving and seduction and ever seeking blooms that can never truly be silenced.

After all, such is the way of life. Such is the way of generations. Those before. Those in living now. And those still yet to come.

When someone close to me flirted with the idea- and indeed made their best attempt- to leave this life, I felt helpless. I wanted to connect them intravenously to the beauty of the world, to flood their veins with art and nature and light. To give them everything I knew to be good in the hope they’d change their minds.

Anyone who’s been in a similar position before knows the sense of magnified desperation, the yearning to shake cells to the point where there is a vibrational remembrance of all that is magic. A visceral plea to make someone you love want to stay.

This is not something I’ve written about before. The memory I’ve tucked away in a tidy corner titled “things to not talk when meeting new people”. Or perhaps, things to not talk about at all.

So when I sat in a circle of writers and was asked to write on something we hadn’t looked at before, that felt personal or uncomfortable, I picked up the cardboard box full of these memories, pierced it with a shard of light and remembered back to the day I got the phone call.

The beautiful question then being, on that day, what were the words I really wanted to say?

For some reason, this poem chose to be a rhyme. I told her that that wasn’t my usual style, but she was insistent.

I share it with you now in the hope that in our dark moments, we can all draw on friendship and imagination to help us take the next half step, in whatever direction that needs to be.

I knew what you meant was you’d run out of ways to live.

When I answered the phone
and they said you’d tried to die,
I knew what you meant
was you’d run out of ways to
live.

Let me talk, I said, they put
the phone up to your ear.
Listen closely, I tell you, 
there’s one more thing
you need to hear.

Untie your umbilical cord,
place it down,
remove the price tag, 
rip it off,
throw it on the ground.

No more paying for an item that
someone else checked out. 
It’s ok, go gently,
we can definitely
work it out.

You feel blue?
Here, I have a paint can,
crack it open!
It’s yellow like the sun, 
we’ll make green,
the colour of unbroken.

I’ll take a paintbrush, 
slap it on,
I’ll cover myself too. 
Oh wait, listen again!
Another thing I want to do...

Let’s break free, go run
across the fields
be a new species, 
an undiscovered creature,
they’ll write about us in their stories,
rub their eyes, 
promote you as the feature.

Lift your feet, stare at the ground
and tell me what you see. 
New shoots?
Those started with stories
in a seed.

Take that line of thoughts
making mysteries in your mind, 
throw them out in front,
let them form an orderly line.

We wield your words, 
with them together
make a bridge.
I’ll use mine too!
Starting with please stay,
you have a place here,
and I love you.

Go on, step!
You’ll find those words, 
they can shoulder anything.
Let’s inch our way across 
make our way to edge
of everything

Here! Hold this,
I lassoed the sun for you.
Now take my hand and jump, 
you’ll find your wings will 
come to you.

You’re afraid?
I get it.
It’s only 20 stories down,
a super natural free fall
we’ll land softly on the ground

Quick! Take this straw,
and plunge it into the earth.
Drink in soil and damp and grit,
quench the emptiness
confused as thirst.

I’ll wait.

We can stay.
 
Til we’re tipsy on gravity.

High on the fumes of an
Earth so solid it’s been 
begging all along to 
let it hold you. 

I’m here.

I knew what you meant 
when you said you wanted to die
was you were tired of not really living

And when I said we’ll find a way 

This is what I meant

right back.

A few weeks back, an email pinged into my inbox.

We’re looking for short, flash pieces for our journal, it said. For people with a connection to the ocean, who might want to write about sea level rise and climate change.

The turnaround time was only a couple of days.

I chewed on my pencil for a while. It’s not a topic I’ve written on before.

How to capture the essence of someone’s relationship to the sea and the changes it’s going through in only a couple of hundred words?

The beautiful question I set out to answer for myself that week.

Here is the answer for you now.

*****

Spooning, definition; lying one behind the other, bodies folded in. Spooning for ten minutes a day increases oxytocin, lowers cortisol, reduces stress and develops intimacy.

Source: Google

I lie down on the sand and spoon the sea.

Just Sunday ago, I looked up at the sky, face to the hot, strong wind and said “Stop”. I squinted eyes, held up both hands, tried to muster clouds, rearrange the sky.

The wind didn’t listen, knew my instructions were all wrong. For a non-believer, you’ve prayed a lot of times, it seemed to say.

Wind whipped, I go back in. The powers out. I send a message to a friend:

I hope climate change comes with electricity.

Today I read:

Pacific Ocean (Te Moana Nui a Kiwa), 165.2 million km2

An ocean so large that all the land on earth will fit in it

Roll up, roll up. The Greatest Show On Earth.

I don’t remember much. I was three, maybe four. The doctors bang my back, hard with their palms. Spit it out, they’d tell me. Better out than in.

It took me a long time to learn to spell the word. Pneumonia. The first letter silent. Many dangerous things begin with silence, I have learned since.

I watch the water rising. There’s a patch of weeds it never used to cover. Now with every tide in, tide out the green of my tidal estuary disappears.

I spoon and watch, watch and spoon. The water over weeds feels like weight. Heavy lungs, heavy land, the weight of water soaked.

I bang my palm hard on the sand.

Spit it out, I say. I know it hurts. Better out than in.