inspired by the indigenous navajo creatix spiderwoman, woman horizontal is a close-to-the-heart project that has held different shapes over many years. still an emerging work-in-process, below is one piece from my “pilgrimage of verse, image, and sound.”
in sanctuary, in pulp woven + pressed then printed, i found her waiting for me
she sang me in to the fourth world,
skimming the spiraling thread
between timeless times, liminal horizons, + the veils of imagined realities
cradled to her heart, stretched out + spun, belly up
laid to rest upon a loamy bed of earth
i see
i hear
i smell
i taste
i touch
i know
no beginning to nature, no end to me
the boggy creak of a frog camouflaging its bilge water song
that scampering chitter of black squirrels and petite chipmunks scaling trees fallen + splintered
a trio of lithe deer silently lunching in the marsh
flickering tails catch my eye
fawny brown smattering against thickets of green
damsel flies + redwing blackbirds
fluttering things, buzzing beings
alighting, pausing, taking flight toward perches high and low
cumulonimbus clouds thick as riverbanks
yield to an estuary of marbled blue sky wending through the atmosphere
a waking dream
a revelation of the universe within
i am absorbed,
arms fold me in and in
to the womb-depths of fertile soil
(six feet, a mere starting point an underdwelling to pause before the long journey back)
deeper still
to seed, to cell, to atom, to spark, to notion, to curiosity
i am at rest
stretched out + spun, belly up
surrendering to legacy
inheriting death
the completion
a void, vacuum, vanishing point
a vortex of matter
(before) reanimating
no end to me, no beginning to nature
knowtouchtastesmellhearsee
curiosity begats notion begats spark begats atom begats cell begats seed
a bare kernel
rising layer by layer
upward trailing through horizons of bedrock, clay, silt, sand, soil, humus
musky with the life scent of burrowing things, many-legged crawl-creeping things
clawing and boring tunnels around and through
a littering of decay and dis(re)membered things
exoskeletons, crushed stone, deep-buried hollowed bones of those forgotten things
digging up, up, up toward surface
exhumed by faith-magic and love
tscottmiller 