hour 5

heartwood

 

heartwood spirals in the centre of my tree relations

through drought

devastation

and diaspora

unlike my heart would in isolation

from this long-lost heartwood

carved into me like scarring rituals

with ash from fires where hearts would glow

from the sacrifice of one being for another.

 

my heart would be better –

is better –

in those sacred spaces where hearts are made in groves

where cedar

or maple

or birch

hold my heart like my Mother would.

 

my teachers tell me:

the medicine is not far from the illness –

maybe our hearts would hear this healing,

if we reach to the heartwood.

 

© r. l. elke