Poetry
Desire
Desire is everywhere
The tree desires the sun
In it’s reach
The magpie desires
The glint of gold
In its beak.
Earth desires the rain
Wind desires the clouds
Breath desires the
Milk of goddesses
Fat and happy
Against the breast.
Even the child desires,
Reminds us that laughter
Desires our bellies
Laughter wants it’s wicked
Way with us.
Bodies desire desire
Navigate us together like
Magnets or polar points
Like a compass seeking poise
And stillness at the centre
Of the storm of all this
Wanting it wanting it wanting it
Fighting it fighting it fighting it.
Desire is a simple thing
When felt
When sensed
When allowed to move
Desire is the voice of god
The out breath in the frost
The giggle in the stars
Not the bane of our existence
Not the keeper of some
Twisted human prison
That we must punish ourselves
To sit inside
Bereft and flagellating.
Remember this remember this:
Desire is the tree towards the sun
The birds towards the flock
The rock towards erosion
And the bones towards decay
Desire is the heartache of
Our ancestors who would
Have given it all ten times over
Just to have known us
For a moment.
Desire is the feathered path
In the mist
Desire is the cackle
Of the hag from the ashes
Who should carry revenge
In her burned and charcoal heart
But delivers instead a gift
Like a whisper in our dreaming
Like a shadow or a light
In the woods
Who’s call we have plainly
Failed to understand.
Because even the smell of it
Can break a fragile person
In two
Can draw daggers on the schoolgate
Can turn mothers to kill their daughters dead
Like all is well
Like it was all meant to be that way.
Instead of this way
Instead of the song in the ear of another
Instead of the touch in the darkness
From one woman to a brother
Instead of the warmth of galaxies
Or the pull of oceans
As they surrender to the tide
In the exact same way
My sex surrenders to
The pull of a holy man
As he begs me
To speak again of the old ways
As he begs me
To speak it into the ears of babes
As he begs me
To speak it to speak it just to speak it.
Desire is the witches song
Desire is the prayer
Is all
Bring our bodies back to power
And let everything else
Let the empires of thought
Let the fleets of war
Fall.
Copyright Julia Lally 2017