love you, I love you)
I love you now
Yoko Ono
1.
My fingertips pushed through the mossy earth, into the damp soil, wriggling deeper.
The texture of the roots between my fingers, some thick and almost rubbery, others
delicate and fine, webs, rhizomes.
The clay, the silt, the sand, the worm casts crumbled in my hands.
All day I carried the smell of fresh earth on my fingers.
Oh how much I wanted to push down right into you, my love, to be consumed by you.
To feel myself sink into your depths, my dear, to take shelter in your underworld.
The majesty of the mountains revealed themselves as I ascended.
Tremendous expanses of daunting beauty.
Above, vultures circled.
Up here, where the air is thin, on the rocky outcrops, awe belongs to you alone, my love.
The insects, the wildflowers, the so many ladybirds, the highland meadows thronged with life.
My heart ached.
Oh to curl up here, my dear, and listen to the wildlife creeping out after dark.
To contemplate the stars as the temperature plummets and my nose drips with the biting cold.
I sat by the fire.
Pine cones glowed orange, the needles hissed and spat, sap oozed from a green wood
branch and the wood from the ash tree burned slow and hot.
In the flickering light of the dancing flame, silence and conversation, all welcome by the crackling fire.
The fluidity, the creativity, the passion, it was all there, my love.
The fire radiated through me and I could taste the sweat and smoke on my lips.
Oh to be so enthralled by you, my dear.
To be pulled so close my cheeks burned red.
The skin on the back of my neck tingled with the ice-cold water of the river.
I looked down at my legs, glistening and distorted, my feet wrapped over a smooth
pebble, holding fast against the rushing water.
The little fish, the tadpoles, the river-weed tangled up with my feet, my skin flushed pink.
I went numb, for a bit, my love.
The sound of the flowing water lulled me, I spoke quietly to myself.
I bent down, submerged my face, the water lapping against my lips.
Oh how it is to feel your energy in the water, my dear.
To feel it in my scalp, shivering down my body.
2.
Now, I thank you, my love, for walking this walk with me.
You have been the finest companion.
You have walked me through such happiness and joy, such sadness and confusion.
With you it has all been welcome. It has all been all right.
And now, I question, what sort of companion was I?
For all that I celebrated you and revelled in your wonder, I see now that I did not honour
you, nor hold you in true reverence.
I was here, you were there, and so I walked with you sometimes, and then went elsewhere.
I admired you from afar.
And from that comfortable distance, I could not feel how I too was caught up in
exploiting you, diminishing you.
I made you an object, myself a subject.
We stood apart.
You, and I.
And now, I wonder, who has suffered most, from this story of you, and I?
Because you, my love, were never ‘nature’.
And I …
I was never anything else.
3.
Now, in the silence, I stretch my fingers wide and rest my hands on my belly.
I breathe deep and slow.
No clenched fists, an open heart, tender, no fear in fragility.
My feet stand firm, my roots.
My skin burns.
Here, this is the unbearably perfect.
Now, one.
These scars are ours.
Now, into the wilderness, into the hostile world that has fought, so long, to silence our truth.
Into the city.
Now, with all our beauty, all our grief, all our shame, all our pain.
For all that we hold dear, for all that we love, for all that we are.
Now, it’s time we walk as one.
Sally Jane Hole
As a teen, I wore a T-shirt quoting Chief Seattle. ‘The Earth is our mother,’ it said. ‘Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.’ Looking back, I can see how I turned away from the depth and clarity of that insight. I listened to other stories of my time – stories so commonplace that I did not even see them as stories.
I listened to the story that if I wasn’t pragmatic I would come to regret my choices.
