The Expansion
And like a trillium seed
waiting for nine years
to reach up,
to tear the earthen mask from its face,
like the violent dancing of pines
before a storm—
it begins again.
That force from behind time,
from all those bodies
feeding me from their breasts
until I become their sharper form,
green lines against the distance,
my eye focused in the
mirror of the Crow’s.
I have the power to tear down
towering constructions,
the ones reinforced daily
by those who are alive like a shrug.
I have torn limbs from oaks
and planted willow seeds
by the drying-up streams.
I have said,
“I know you,
I know you,
I know you.”
And then—
I know you.
And I am a mycelium tendril
carrying messages through life,
in service to the mystery
of dancing,
the mystery of the joy of moving
to feel Earth’s tongue upon my ear,
whispering incoherent melodies.
Like the rest of us,
I have grown used to living
as a casual endeavor.
If it is nothing,
then it is nothing to look away
from the cardinals
watching me through the window
with Her eyes.
If it is nothing,
it is nothing to say the mind
is just a hindrance
to the railway of existence.
I turn my face upward
and I laugh.
Filled with the strength of this moment,
outside of lines,
I almost tear my wet finger from its socket.
I lay back,
watching colors on my skin,
more real than the concrete
I accidentally stamped my foot into.
The circle of history and songs
curls through me,
around,
back out—
I watch the boundless
veins of my hand.
Moriah Brown is a poet and novelist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her poetry has been published in Creation Magazine, The Passionfruit Review, and The Woolf, among others, and has also been featured in various anthologies. When she is not working as a medical assistant and bartender, she is writing or walking in the forest.
Amethyst Review 