For Mother Poet Barbara, who passed 12-27-14
I try to pick the atlas sphere like a kiwi ripening
in the cold sudden sunshine. The vine
of the milky way snakes gracefully, hop
ping and bumbling like an absent
minded pro (con)
fessor across the drape of magnolia
branch (ing). I think I hear ka (achoo)
zoos faintly. Feintly, feintingly
up on the lad(ud)der of gaia-kiwi-plucking
all-seeing, my vision zooms in on the
burgundy polka
dot ladybug irridescing.
We are these kiwis, worlds, galaxies:
of poets and poems.
We are the ladybugs tending the vines of connecting.
For years now, Imunuri poets, we’ve been up on ladders
plucking kiwi-poems from the arbor of gaia’s hair/the
constellations of
the nearby universe. We have landed our pens on the passing
asteroids
of ancient ideas, giving novel voice (seasonally arising now
for tens of
thousands of years) to what has always been true. Hasn’t it?
We have been shout-singing praise-songs, plucking kiwis in
buckets, word-phrases in stanzas, prompting ourselves
up in the morning, into the thick vines, in gruff denim and
swaddled in
sweaters of analogy, allegory, and allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the poetry of the united states
(stars/kiwis) of imunuri…
If I am you and you are I, perhaps we are the kiwis, tangy
swaddled in
brown hairy cocoons of temporary breath, plucked by the planetary
presences who are in carhartts and fleece. The earth grips
us,
this day-being of us, this seasonal kiwi, thinking of how
to savor the kiwi-sweet-juice of us, our poem-songs a kind
of planetary nourishment, ingredients for a meal for the
belly of gaia.
In which case, we have generated 148 recipes for gaian
delight, we have
gingered the bananas, sautéed our metaphors in crisp,
delicious
words, added the core holy spices of love and presence. We
have lit the fire (holy) with the freshness of our poetic
breath.
Now we pause, having jumped, walloped, read, spun, sung,
earthed,
tenderizing these verses for Earthly sauté. We have been the
supple
soufflé, the stirring spoon, the serving fork. We have spun
the plates and
gathered up the goblets, hummed the flowing libations into
poetry as offering for the universe unfurling, who is a
clatch of chattering
kiwi pluckers, in for a break, air cold as breath, the
breath clouds
themselves. All this. And the earth herself too, and the
galaxies and planets.
I am you and you are I is not only about humuns; more so
projective
empathy and cross-species, cross-being , cross-scale symbiosis.
Hunkering at puters,
plunkering at ukuleles, in cafes from California to Oregon,
in the dim dark possibilities of poem-birthing night, plucking kiwis, offering
these sweet
juicy tastes of
delight to the maker-spheres of our heaven on earthing.
Definitely part of something big, spare, whole. Jumping
through,
I come back to you, who, reading this, run the hand on the
back of your neck
and yes you feel the kiwi fuzz there, you just start to turn
around as you sense
the giant Gaian hand hovering for the pluck. We are being
tended, gardened,
and poem-harvested for the delight of things so much larger
than us
that all that’s needed, feeling the whisper air of the
Earth-hand hovering to
pluck the juicy kiwi skin of us from the vine ripening weave
of our connection,
all we
(can) do is
grin.
grin the gaian grin of
deep knowing
that we are ripe and
ready for the festival (feast of alls) of earthly delight
which as we well know
helps the Earth,
rolling down a hill on a summer day,
warm, over the
voluption of grassy stars, starry night
nourishes the Gaian spin
Scooter Cascadia
12-31-14
