Heaven is
the gifts of friends who see our mind prosper
who nurture our dreams
setting us free
unblocking our hearts and our throats
where gifts of our own lie dormant unseen
awaiting permission
– bound –
in fears manufactured by the poisoned intention of extractivist times
domineering the soft and the gentle
the human within us deformed
into hardened expressions of a broken,
twisted masculine
push
that seeks validation by attempting to force
all that’s around it
to service and serve self-anointed masters
embodied in women and men.
Heaven is
learning to set the self free
fearless
in expressions of gentleness
in allowing the tears and the hurt
of destruction by pushing
demanding forever
more
until no more is there to be given
demanding that Earth, non-human and human
surrender
more than there is to give.
Heaven is
open to subtle pulls, softness
the pull and the gravity of those who
refuse
to be pushed
who refuse to be hardened by a world
that was never built or intended for them,
never intended for them to prosper
or even exist.
Heaven is
refusal
to be bent and deformed into shapes
demanded by those failing to hesitate
in enforcing the structures
built to self-aggrandise
(those self-appointed masters)
built as towers of phallic significance
in which to elevate themselves from the lowly,
the rest,
the soft ones who permitted themselves to be pushed
ensnared by the narratives, fearful
of those oh-so-few masters of extractivist times.
Heaven is
finding strength in your softness
the slow gentle process of constructing a spine
which bends
but is never pushed over
at first merely holding
later reclaiming
ground from the extractivist push
poison transmuting
as push turns to pull
through integrity,
knowing
there is no more to give
pushers
because our home is depleted
and so are we.
To those who nurture me:
my mother, my sister, my grandmothers,
Valerie, Harriet, Rebekka, Rosi,
Annie, Andrea, Abi, Gaby, Lucy,
Anya, Tanya, Yana,
my ancestors and the Earth we tread on.
Notes From Afar 