TO NAME IS TO CREATE A THING
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
By Jiya Julia Marie
What happened when we named Nature?
That day of walls and windows
when wild
became somewhere we visit
when she
became Outside?
What a relief to keep out the storms! Her
endless cold her
terrifying unpredictability
empty bellies long walks and Us
surviving.
How precious the shelter felt then! (Safe)
We could not tell how
the walls would thicken. We
did not know then of the high rises.
Human branches suspended
in boxes of bricks, so far from roots
neatly packaged with our
rerouted rivers and ambient control,
our piles of leaves (where
beetles sleep) in bags on the kerb
How a name tricks us! How easy
it is to bury plastic in soil! How tidy
the grid How lovely
letters look on the page. Yet--
Does she know her name?
Outside
waves are rising.
How much time will it take
for green to envelop grey?
for bones to become stone? You there
dreaming of the time before machines
leaning against edges
yearning for vines,
pushing down
the untamed
Inside
Your longing hides like a great wind.
Feel the reaching of green
hungering for sun
life's relentless
love for
life.
Nature waits
raging and patient
while we defy aging and
spray the pests, she takes
buried bodies
creates
from death. Beetles
bees and roots, life cresting
through the gateway of a corpse.
What a relief to be in soil! Safe.
What is a word
to the dead?
(What is
left?)
Only this
lonely longing
like a great wind
blowing
On.