When the earth sings, and I howl

poem of sensation

What does it feel like to be crowned by mushrooms and wreathed with fern

Does the forest take pleasure in the timber of logs that crash upon the bushy earth

What does it feel like to be undone, tree by tree,

And rewoven by the fungal networks beneath the soil

Laid to rest in compost and made a garland of stardust

Replanted as seeds upon the fertile earth

Does the earth enjoy the sensation of water caressing bare rock

Of being slowly rounded out into finite curves

Is the land aroused by the rain falling upon her parched soils

Oh how exotic those droplets are

How deliciously they are absorbed into her cracked skin

What is the sensation of snow falling upon soil

Does it resemble the feeling of bare skin embracing

Does the land relish in being taken so fully by the sky

That she is covered completely in his luminous body

Not to be seen again for months, Is there pleasure in her entombment

What does it feel like to be a crystalline flake of snow

Slipping out of a cloud and floating down to earth

Is there thrill there, cascading down an endless sky

What is held in a branch of a tree that grows heavy with snow

Bending down in prayer to touch the earth

Finally able to kiss the soil from which it came

What songs are sung when a crystal is formed deep in the empty spaces of the earth

What does it feel like to be moulded together, atom by atom, over millions of years

Is it the same sensation as the first breath of life, of coming more and more alive

Does a tree grief, do rocks sing, does grass cry out when it is cut

What does it feel like to stretch and open out of a curled cocoon

As a butterfly or Fern

What’s it like to disintegrate into juice and emerge with wings

To feel the wind kiss a fanned body for the first time

Is there pleasure there, to finally take flight

What does it feel like to be split open so deeply and filled with water

Does the ocean savour the feeling of darkness and solitude where water meets the oldest parts of the earth

What’s it like to be filled so completely that you become infinite

To know emptiness so perfectly that form melts away into fire

Does the earth feel her boundlessness or notice her boundaries

Where rock becomes dust and dust becomes star

Is there sensations in these curves and crevices?

Same as the ones we feel in our bones

Perhaps that is where they come from

A memory from when we were minerals in the soil and seeds in the bushes