remembering: a poemstory

One day I remembered.

But before that day

I was a small regular human

wandering the giant Earth planet

like a grain of sand on the beach

like one cell inside a body.

Being so small it felt easy to fly away off the earth,

to get lost in the turmoil,

to be misplaced

in the giant cacophony of life.

What chance would a feather have of staying in place in a windstorm?

And the work then was to anchor,

to braid together the fine threads

of a heartbeat’s connection to the earth

and to send these down into her unfathomable depths

seeking a rock solid enough to tie onto,

seeking the iron core at her center,

desperate for solidity,

for a center to hold onto

that would not fly apart

despite the ever turning centrifugal feeling of it all.

That work went on for a while.

In the meantime

there were moments of exhilaration,

flying across the face of the Earth – fast

and suddenly aware of each being alive on the planet

as a singular point of light,

a pointillistic Earth covered in a flowy gauzy web of white lights,

the Universe’s best christmas decorations

strung up everywhere,

each living being’s unique light

pulsing in my blood

throbbing in my veins

expanding my head for a moment to nearly the size of the globe itself.

There were answers to mysteries singing in that pulsing

but I could not quite hear the words.

Underneath it all and inside it all

was the singularly consistent tone of the Earth herself

and I spent more and more minutes and then hours and then days

listening to her songs,

hearing how they accompanied the songs of all of the other things on her -

in the birds, the trees, the bees, the glaciers, the ocean waves, the whales, the minnows,

the oysters, the wolves, the snow leopards, the elephants, the butterflies -

they all carried her songs inside them and her songs danced with their own songs

like a melody within a melody

or a fine harmony enrichening the tune.

In the humans this was not so.

they were not hearing her songs

and their own songs were dim and fast and short and often out of tune as a result

and that web of interconnected lights would flare only for brief moments

leaving behind just the dots

alone

singular

tiny

bobbing in the sea of the planet’s great surface

like tiny warning buoys.

Danger, rocks ahead.

::::

I don’t know when it first happened because time is no longer in me.

I only move through it now sometimes for the convenience of certain work.

But it did happen.

One moment I was a small human

bobbing along

singing our songs

me and Earth and life (except the humans) all three together.

Feeling Earth’s sadness and pain

my fierce heart expanded abruptly

and suddenly

I was a giant

but still growing beyond that

and I was suddenly enormous

and so much so that the Earth became like a small ball in my arms

that I could hold and hug and caress

tenderly caring for her like a baby

like a soft fragile delicate being found stunned and senseless by the side of the road.

And she said to me then

‘oh thank goodness you came back for me

I am so glad you are here’

and she nuzzled in closer in my arms,

her sweet smiling face turned up to mine

and closed her eyes and slept.

And then I remembered how I had birthed her from inside me and so many other worlds besides.

And the solar system and the galaxy became tiny,

fitting in the palm of my hand,

and the universe became like a small town I could see from atop the nearby small mountain

and I could see all the worlds I had birthed

spread across hither and yon,

most doing well and flourishing

and here,

here in my arms,

was sweet tiny magnificent darling beloved Earth.

I held her and suckled her and sang to her and laughed from the joy of her

and as she grew strong again.

I rejoiced at the flow of her energy coursing again through her body

around and through her glorious globe

and then I kissed her

and her eyes opened wide

and she laughed with me and sprung up out of my arms

rested and replenished

reconnected and filling up again

and she twirled around like a small child spinning on the grass

laughing merrily as she did

enjoying her awakening and renewal.

Together we crafted a new element

which she spread around and through and under and inside everything on the planet

lastly ensuring it flowed into each of the humans as well.

and when she was ready

we began to sing together

and the sound vibrated the new element in such a way

that it began to shimmy and shiver and slide around inside everything

and the humans even began to feel it

like tiny echos of birdsong in their hearts

like the sweet laughter of a baby

and the new element awoken within them and then awakened them

and they came alive again

standing in sudden curiosity

‘what was that?’

eyes blinking

hearts expanding

lips curling into smiles

twinkles turning on in their eyes

and everywhere all around the globe the people looked to each other and began to sing

and reached for each others’ hands and began to dance.

and then everybody remembered.

_________

Melanie Gillespie

10.20.2020

art by Tamara Phillips