The Sound of Ink

  There was an emptiness in the air as I clung to the stem, a thorned rose who trusted scissors would never bleed me into water and glass to die on a shelf without ever tasting moonlight again.   Hands smooth as my red petals hovered over my face in a butterfly pause I felt I would escape…my imperfection too obvious to an eye determined to ribbon me among snow cheeked lilies.   Yet separation came in a determined cut that divided me from my sister blossoms and the root hum of mother earth.   With why clipped from my tongue I became little more than a trophy, a pretty “thing” to be admired, a handmaid of ego that sought praise while calculating how long I’d survive in the vinegar of artificial rain.   Intention or not, when wilting came, I was pulled through the throat of the vase. I did not succumb to the fate of a plastic shroud, but was gently lain on green grass by a small hand amongst a dandelion rosary.   ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal     ...

  Hymns once rattled stained glass and stone built to house the faithful.   In the middle of nowhere footprints ate grass, a biblical apocalypse growing dust where green once gathered.   When hallelujahs failed to grow numbers in pews, failure’s eye stared into the sun without repentance for planting doom where the meadowlark once sang.   Within the very echo of the last human leaving, bird, beast, and field gathered to redeem Eden from the curse of abandoned.   Revival now speaks in seeds and prayer rows of growing. Butterflies are winged notes singing praises for summer.   Crows own the pulpit, rainbows the baptistry. What man purloined; nature reclaimed. The tabernacle of Mother Earth grows stronger without walls. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal Re-Wilding  

  In the backward forward I unravel, unfeather.   Destiny sits on my shoulder warning, “Use your voice to divide truth from the noise of what shouldn’t be heard. Earth spins on broken bones. Be the calm in the fire, balm for the wound.”   Today is what I’m given. Tomorrow is my hope.   I am one linked to the heartbeat of many. For every feather I’ve lost there’s a hundred forming new wings. I’m a dandelion owl trusting I can see change through clouds of concrete. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal Re-Wilding