Notes From The Field - Tumblr Posts
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Sitting on the bus
In my mouth the taste of tea
Maintaining my calm
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AKB 2016
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Rice sweets and macha
Complementing each other
Rest on my palate
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AKB 2016
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Rice sweets and macha
Complementing each other
Rest on my palate
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AKB 2016
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Light shines down through trees
Bokke on my camera screen
Dapples now captured
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AKB 2016
A Love Affair with the Earth While the Sun Looks On
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The earth is your home
The sea, my legacy.
Every edge of me touching
Every edge of you.
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I say touch, I mean push, nudge
Sometimes I bite
And you crumble
Into my mouth
Then rebuild, elsewhere.
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In the cracks between my toes
Only sand grows.
Wan like my frost
Not the kind dark
Where good things thrive.
Bees won't land on me.
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Glacial, I melt on hot days
My ridges recede, oceans rise.
In loving you, I flood you.
Resistance isn't futile
In this war we call a game.
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In the trenches we plot attrition,
Waves like infantry carry it out.
You let me brush up against you,
Still you roar,
And smile sideways with knowledge.
I'll never win.
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It's a race to the end.
Blood in my ears, oil in your blood.
You taste the salt and spit it out.
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Unstuck and out of synch.
Here are my offerings.
There's no man here
Just entities
Beyond belief.
And still, all I ask is:
Will you touch me?
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You push inside of me
While I only lap at your thighs,
Twisting and calling
Breathing in and out with the moon
While your rhythm waits on the sun.
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The sun, giver and taker
Beats down hotter, beams out brighter
Burns the world and starts anew.
I wouldn't want it without you.
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AKB 2019
Words From Before
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Women power my body:
they are neither consumed for calories
- eat their love and labour -
nor burned for fuel on pyres
- their bodies have always fueled hatred -
yet they are the force behind
every action, each choice.
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My mitochondria: powerhouse of the cell.
We consist of cells and stars and oceans;
we subsist on truth and tales and lies.
My mother told me I have in me
my grandmothers' mitochondria
- I don't know who told her -
but she wants to believe it so I believe it too
- my mother told me so I want it to be true...
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Being a woman is just:
[inherits mother's dreams and trauma][inherits grandmother's trauma and mitochondria][inherits great-grandmother's dreams and trauma][inherits]
...
I never research for poems or I start writing essays;
I just listen to my elders,
listen to my ancestors,
and get lost there instead.
Listen to my self and my body and the 'verse.
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In the shower I let my body be
itself
its curves not hidden by tucks and layers,
not displayed in heels and high-waisted jeans,
not stuffed into bras
and smuggled into knickers;
I just let the water run, let my calloused hands smooth my soft body, wash and stroke away the hurts I've caused.
My hair tangles, it wants to be short.
But my body just is
as it is
as it is.
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Powered by the mitochondria of my grandmothers
and their grandmothers
and theirs
and the 'verse.
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AKB 2020
Rock Climbing
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Bruised knees purple like my nail varnish,
chipped and jagged like the fingers of mountains
carressing the clouds,
callouses where I grip at the rock face like it's your hand.
I hold myself up on you but my wrists ache and my arms spasm and I fall.
You are not my safety mat.
Not basecamp but heady heights.
I climb and retreat. You are unmoved.
There is no give when I crash into you.
No mitigating yourself for my presence.
I cannot live my life where you are.
The air too thin, the sights so dizzy, the light bright enough to make my eyes blink
and I have to look away.
No space for mortals in these craggy halls open under the sky.
Just the risk of exposure. No tent,
No shelter here.
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AKB 2020
Rock Climbing
/
Bruised knees purple like my nail varnish,
chipped and jagged like the fingers of mountains
carressing the clouds,
callouses where I grip at the rock face like it's your hand.
I hold myself up on you but my wrists ache and my arms spasm and I fall.
You are not my safety mat.
Not basecamp but heady heights.
I climb and retreat. You are unmoved.
There is no give when I crash into you.
No mitigating yourself for my presence.
I cannot live my life where you are.
The air too thin, the sights so dizzy, the light bright enough to make my eyes blink
and I have to look away.
No space for mortals in these craggy halls open under the sky.
Just the risk of exposure. No tent,
No shelter here.
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AKB 2020
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A tree is growing
In a place it shouldn't be;
But it's beyond me.
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AKB 2020
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A tree is growing
In a place it shouldn't be;
But it's beyond me.
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AKB 2020