mother, you are hurt
I run outside
as a kid ready
to play in the rain —
barefoot.
The ground is cold
and the drops bring
goosebumps and shivers.
I step on your bloody
Oklahoma mud and
it shoots through
the cracks in my toes.
The oil drills continue
to crucify your body.
They drive their bits
in your hands and
spit on your face with
pollutants and claim
kingship over you.
But mother,
you have a strong core.
mother, you are healing
You quake and shake
you crumble and mumble
but you are powerful.
A core of iron and nickel --
the pressure only makes
you stronger and wiser.
People have begun to
notice your aging skin
and the destruction of your
oceans that hold mysteries
and the sky that protects
us from your star.
The trees bend underneath
your whispers and carry
your beauty to our spirits.
We need to give back to
the one who raised us.
Mother, are you healing yet?
Discussion
I hesitate to write about my own poems because I don’t really agree it is the author’s job, but I think this will be fun. I wrote these two poems about a year ago. Living in Oklahoma, I had experienced some of my first ever earthquakes as a result of oil drilling. It literally and metaphorically shook me. How could these big oil companies be not only running our government but destroying the very land we all share. As a result, the first poem you read was created. I kept the rhythm neat and quick to match the anger rising in my chest with each new quake. The imagery contains a double-sided meaning. One it conveys the brutality at which the Earth is being murdered, just as Jesus was — drilling into the surface of the skin. It also conveys the idea of how religion is often used to justify terrible actions and motives. Nevertheless, despite my natural cynicism, I give a glimmer of hope about the beauty of mother herself — the universe herself — god herself. In turn, the second poem was created.
The second poem is a reflective piece that carries the same (nearly) rhythmic pattern as the first. I have to believe that the universe is somehow bent towards justice and love rather than destruction. It is often hard to convince myself of these things. However, when I experience nonduality and experience that there is no good without the bad — that there is no good and bad, it simply just is, I can see love rise from the ground. Mother begins to heal.
Be free in the present,
Trace Maddox
