The Standing People Are Moving

Bashing themselves about,

stag horns clashing as

cymbals of wood and wind.

The watchful mothers are stirring,

shifting their burdens as they

wait for their moment.

IT. IS. NOW.

Restless roots cleave the ground,

leaving behind their ancestral songlines

to form an unending procession.

Their breath opposite ours,

these Earth sentinels carry our earliest memories

as monkeys, untamed creatures.

They are cut down and so are we.

They are sick and so are we.

They are threatened and so are we.

Standing people are walking, now running,

there is no more silent waiting.

Moving to a thunderous beat, primal, persistent.

The sky is open and marked by their absence.

The axis of the world tilted, the four directions shifted.

The trees are AWAKE and shaking the Earth!

Join flesh and branch, breath and dance,

The Tree Tribe is rising,

The Black Mother is calling us from drowsiness:

Awaken from your false security, your wild maturity,

Awaken to your all encompassing connectivity!

The trees thump and the Earth rocks,

and the drums pulse in time,

To a vow of aliveness, pounding, pounding,

Pounding in our feet up to our hearts,

So that, my child,

we will never fall asleep again.

Published in We'Moon 2020: Gaia Rhythms for Womyn, p.46