My mother's womb was a gentle glen
Ploughed and planted haphazardly,
My father a typical colonial
Inept at love and husbandry,
But from that warm and fertile field
My sister and I sprang up—
When the environmental cancer
In the seedbeds of her ovaries
Twisted and consumed that little plot
That gave us life, my mother died,
We put her in the purifying flames
And then in dear old Mother Earth herself.

I wish that I could see my early years
More clearly, my rambles in the woods
And fields, my mother’s face when she called me
“Mighty hunter,” charmed, I think,
Because I fiercely loved the free
And blowing things she loved as well,
Her love for me the flux
That helped create my fragile ties to Earth,
Despite my dad, despair and capitalism—
Afraid to come to Earth and settle in,
Afraid to fly away forever,
Opposed to men in power and poisoned water,
I love the world as it should be.

2005