Once, while sitting on a field,
I looked inside.
I looked inside
myself,
and saw Winter.
I saw hills,
towering white crystals.
I saw children
rolling down mounds of pearl pillows
and leaving angels on the paths.
I looked inside,
I did,
and saw Spring.
I saw gardens,
fluttering daffodils of all colors,
pastel wings in blue winds.
I saw lips
pressed and blended in nectary swirls.
I looked inside,
deep deep inside,
and saw Summer.
I saw heat and curling sea waves.
I saw nude bodies, anxious and excited,
sweating as they treaded foreign shores.
I looked inside,
truly inside,
and saw Fall.
I saw fragments of branches and bark,
of bones and skin.
I saw layers of leaves,
orange and yellow, bundled
and alive like phoenix fire.
I looked inside,
inside
myself,
lower,
further,
than ever before.
There were whales singing,
and I was the music
and the current it rode
as it traveled ever inwards
into greater and greater
regions unknown.
I vibrated through the core of the Earth,
became its amber heart,
and then pulsed
though innumerable ancient skeletal forms.
I quaked through crust,
dug through worm warm soil—
I broke
though the surface and crawled
up cords of new trees, brushing my nerves
along knots of bark and vines.
At their tops, I flared my nostrils
and took in the air, feral and wild.
Wood crunch beneath,
my claws razor ready
as I pounced
and in my jaws caught
myself.
—small and trembling—
Red terror tore through my ribs,
and I became the explosion
of blood and chemicals.
There was pain
and then
it faded—
the World, and light,
and even darkness too…
Then, I looked inside,
and through tunnels pregnant
with salt flesh and sweet honey,
I rose, feather light.
I had no eyes,
no nose,
no ears,
no tongue,
no skin, and yet
my senses beamed
beamed,
out into darkness,
far beyond space and time.
I became incandescent,
every particle alive
with feeling.
On every surface I touched,
I began soft and nebulous.
Then, solid and outlined.
Until, out of countless shells, emerged
my face.
I was bathed
in mineral scents, in soil and decay,
and the cool caress of water
poured along my lips, pure and clean.
I drank
and drank,
until my thirst compelled my arms
to tear through seas and mountains,
through hell and heaven, until, finally,
I sprouted.
Back I was,
on a bright open field, embraced
by white rays humming my name,
A name that has been,
that is,
and will forever be.