The unborn sleep and wake
to their mothers’ heartbeats
with flares of dawns and sunsets.
Expectant with gentle curves,
fields are still blotched with snow,
while limp and drowsy meadows
transform into the smoky green
of seeding grasses and flowers,
patches of shifting light and colours
bound together by an invisible umbilical,
dewy cobwebs and the hum of early bees –
there are no gaps in nature’s family tree.
Kim M. Russell, 22nd February 2021
My response to earthweal weekly challenge: Natural Forces
This week, Brendan has shared some of his youth with us, explaining why Florida is the place he needs to be. I love the way he describes his first summer there as being ‘thick with the pulpy sweetness of fresh-squeezed orange juice’. He says that much of his teen years ‘was naturally sourced’. He says that Florida was ‘wild, unkempt, savage, burning’ and the ocean was the ‘sheer heave and suck of Grendel’s mam, delirious and salty and dazzled.’ A vivid picture, especially as it is juxtaposed with pop harmonies on a poolside transistor radio!
Brendan also refers to David Abram’s book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, which reminds us that ‘shamans – the ancestors of poets — were not masters of nature but master mediators of humanity’s place in the world at large’ and suggests that. as poets, we pay homage to the natural forces which have shaped us.
With some excellent examples of poems by John Clare, James Wright, Denise Levertov and A.R. Ammons, Brendan challenges us to write about natural forces as protagonist and hero, speaker and subject, beloved and lover.
writing in north norfolk 
This is truly beautiful! I loved your way of using the womb and unborn baby as a metaphor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Astrid!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You write if my favorite season with such personality. Thanks for the memory!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for reading and commenting, Patricia!
LikeLike
Excellent and beautiful, I like ‘smoky green’, I think I know what you mean as the shoots start to come through..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Francis.
LikeLike
Oh, this is beautiful. I can feel, under the snow, everything getting ready to burst forth. Nature puts on her best dresses for us in spring. Not long now. We already have crocuses and other things poking green stems up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Sherry. I’m my walk yesterday I saw snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils, which made me feel lighter.
LikeLike
Exactly! I love the seamless umbilical shared by culture and nature. We are interdependent beings ….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Brendan!
LikeLike
This makes me think that perhaps we are always unborn, tied to Mother Earth, in ways we may never understand. (K)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Everything is connected to Mother Earth’s cord.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is really beautiful and so skilfully done: the seamless transition from the curve of a pregnant belly through the curves of the fields to the umbilical of cobwebs. Marvellous!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a wonderful comment, Ingrid, than you so much!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a wonderful poem! You should submit for publication.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a lovely poem. It stands within the English tradition of Pastoral Poetry. I agree with Ingrid. It deserves to be published elsewhetre.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Suzanne. I have a list of publications and competitions I to which I plan to submit, and I’ve added ‘Invisible Umbilical’ to the list of poems to be matched up with them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good luck!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your opening stanza serves a wonderful metaphor – an expectant day waiting to awaken, aware of the interconnectedness that is such a part of its being.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Ken.
LikeLiked by 1 person