BACK  OR  ANOTHER

Full Moon Flower
A vessel once filled with ashes has broken open
and a pure stream runs through it
while honey pot wasps hover over a cache of resin.
The resonance of birds weaves through the village.
A woman full with open petals and the lore of plants
sits at her lookout of closed eyes
and sends her spirit into the houses of those
who need doctoring:
A feverish child,
a pregnant woman, like an open portal,
an elder man, soon to be welcomed
through the flutes of heaven.
In her umbilicus she carries amber
that entire civilizations can be traced to-
A seed that fell from a jaguar coat,
a leaf vein from a fig, who, like a woman,
bears it’s flower deep in the interior,
a mosquito whose blood holds
the DNA of a feathered lizard
in its gold entombed body
and a vine scale that stretches back in time
before two continents split apart and
gave birth to an ocean.
Her back is strong and upright from
shuttling across the loom
like the weavers of ancient cities
and her arms large from carrying water, 
children, fire sticks.
Leaves spread out behind her and before her
and the medicinal flowers train
up her ladder and into her arms.
Let her countenance and her wisdom
spread over the land
and jump ship to other land masses
where a hundred monkeys work picking oolong tea
And let the jaguar prowess of her
catch the light in her belly
as she bundles stalks of divination,
blood red petals velveting life,
healing wine fermenting in the shadows.

Amy Trussell