To Ana, the mother of all good people

Oh mother
Oh mother
Oh mother
I wish I had met you
before my daughter was born
Oh mother
your solid body
gives us the ground to stand on
to rely upon
to lay us down
to sink and be absorbed in
yet remain impenetrable
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
I wish I had felt
the power of your care
your knowing wisdom
your firm intention
to look after us
oh mother
I just can't say it out
loud yet
silent still
all these years
all these bodies wasted on the verge
of deteriorization
on the edge of the labyrinth
or right in the heart of it
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
I wish I had experienced
the power of your will
the strength you pass on to us
before we are born
into this female body
into these female bodies
I'm desperately trying
to call mine
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
you've come to us
at last
after I have sweat my prayers
to you
unexpectedly
from behind
soft vast and strong
taking me in
you were not asking for permission
you knew you'd been
granted access
to the whole me
to the hole in me
to the holes in the hole
& the void behind the holes
oh holy you were making me
feel whole again
or have I ever?
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
I'm so filled with gratitude
for you encouraging me
to let go
surrender
& go to the point of
yes return
yes here I come
yes I go down
yes I'm on the ground
yes I'm going all the way
down
to the ground
way down through the ground
way down through my body
way down through your heart
which is my body
which is your heart
which is my heart
which is your body
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
I wish I had been in this grave
before
before I was born to live & die
this darkness
this stillness
this absence of movement
this presence of me
in every tiny particle
as huge as a planet
oh mother
oh mother
oh mother
found you at last
just lie down
and dance the small dance of death
in the soil of my body
& when everything
went oh so quiet
when the world stopped turning
stopped turning me into things
I wanted to be
I didn't want to be
I desperately wanted
I wholeheartedly loathed
then I died oh mother
in your arms
in your eyes
I just faded away
slowly
as a fluttering flame dies out
& then something began to grow
inside my soil of a body
a tiniest seed
containing a sequoia
yet to come
& I was watching me dying
being born
finding ways through
all at the same
time
all in the same
space
but yet so different
I was giving birth to me
& you were a perfect midwife
to remind my body
that it is
alive in lots of different ways
that it is
dead in lots of different ways
& now
dead or alive
I am wanted
& we surrender to you
look at us
unfolding like sprouts
look at us
in our strength and beauty
look at us
just as we look at you