I am my Mother’s wild daughter.
She has named me
green and luminous,
sapwood and mend,
haven and root.

My heart is a forest;
I will not be contained
by manmade chapels.
I am merely light
whipping through the willows;
the first flush of spring.

Malice will not devour my soul.

I am ruinous.
I am good.
I gleam the waters,
I burn soft as the moon and stars,
swift as the sun.1

I do not need to be taught
how to worship—how to
fall to the earth on my knees.

I am reverence herself;
I cannot be scorned.

2

About the poem:

This poem began in defiance.

Some people will not love you as you are—in part, perhaps, but never in full. To be misunderstood is a great tragedy. But an even greater tragedy is to be dishonest.

For years, I have maintained a constant posture of defensiveness. I have consistently diminished my presence so as not to disrupt other’s notions of who I am.

I have abdicated my power to those who claim to know better—to be wiser.

To this I say: no more.

I know who I am. She calls to me, wild and familiar and foreign.
She is everything I once was and everything I will someday be.

She is a healer.
She is a soothsayer.
She is a wise woman.
She is not wayward—far from it.

God runs through her veins like sap.

Dear kindred, thank you for being here. It means much more than you know!
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