by Margo Greb
This is about water.
If it reads disjointed then consider this a soup. Or maybe
A place to get your feet wet
The home I was born in is a side of the hill dome that leads down to a tributary
Tohickon, Lenni-Lenape for
Deer-bone-creek or piece of wood or wooded place or Deers place
At home at the end of the day you can walk the dog down the emergency access trail
Which turns into boy scout “property”
And either continue up onto the ridge or go straight down to the Tohickon
New development last time I was home;
the metal gate that restricts pedestrians on the emergency trail “By order of Police”
Had been smashed by a big ol dying Sugar Maple
It felt personal
The word victorious came to mind
That gate's been a joke to my family forever
You can walk around it—no fence
It is a silly door with no wall
to imply that it is the end all be all of passages
Death to borders! Last thing the Maple said
Approaching that gate became an amusing ritual this time around
Anything can be a portal if you want it to be
My favorite time to go through that portal was just a bit before sundown
So that by the time the dog and I got to the ridge or to the water
There would be another portal:
Dusk
Because I think this is so important
Here's some poetry:
Dusk is the hermit we meet on our journey
Who shows us the beaming gate of vitality
And says you must keep the flame burning
There's probably another poem to tell you that i’m weaving a metaphor for
the Metal phase as it leads into the Water phase
Says something real nice about going down that hill towards the creek consolidating
Even talks about metal as a vessel for water
How boundless water will be a boundary in itself
There's a link between the gratitude I feel for the soup pot
and the necessity of form for water
Metal gives shape. Consider cups
Consider gates consider the dusk that transports us
from Fall to Winter
Metal to Water
Day to Night
Consider the gift of each dusk’s
Gilded invitation to go in and down
Daily baptism. Renewal. That pearly word
Ceremony
The most amazing thing i've ever done is walk alongside a rained and raging creek
Sun gone down dog with no shadow
Water moving like a threat
Shoreline superseded
Can’t distinguish the awe from fear from respect from love
I have dreams like this
Water out of bounds, busted through edges, spilling dams, volatile seas
A sense of everything moving past my chest
On the other side a vertical red cliff
It wouldn’t be respectful to describe its
Rhythm, voice, the contents of its body
Beech trees decked out in rain drops
Sycamores smirking their asses off
Wytch hazel being all scorpio-like
Brilliant
Hilarious even
The older I get the more I laugh with the sacred, the beautiful, the incomprehensible
Sanctity
Of this
World
If you wanna know what all this sounds like listen here
Now I can talk about the rocks:
The second most amazing thing I've ever done is put a bunch of rocks in my pockets
There are a lot of things that humans have done for a long time
One of them is go to the water and put rocks into whatever blessed little satchel
Someone made with the utmost care and attention
I could puke thinking about how this simple act
Connects me to everyone before
We’re all just gathering rocks to bring back home
This winter in my cave I’ve found underground passages
AKA wormholes
Got obsessed with the intimacy of Indigenous stone agricultural tools
Immersed in the devotion that turns rock into a mirror for the human hand
Astonished at their return to water to hundreds of years later
be fished out by some human who still forages in the streams
Puts rocks in pockets and heads home
There’s a stupid-deep beam of self going down into the ground
weighing the wretched eons of events leading up to me being born here
It taps a spring that bellows: I cherish and am responsible to this place!
I took my rocks home back up past the damned gate
Dark, wet, cold, weighted, cavernously content
There's a wood stove waiting for me
The third most amazing thing i've ever done is tend a fire
Gathered earths wood stacked it fed the flame
Got dizzy thinking about the thoracic cycle of
Being alive and being dead
Held close that silly little human tendency
to form a circle
Around Water around Fire
Here we remember that death is the absence of warmth
and the beginning of birth
Dusk asks What are you giving death to?
As the lantern guides you down the hill
You're probably wondering what the fourth most amazing thing I’ve ever done is
And that's walk with my feet on the ground
obsessive repetitive fall of one foot in front of the other
Ridiculous holy relation of water to earth
This body constantly caught
by the soil of everything
Consider that it is the earth beneath our feet that carries us through gates
That inseparable magnetic bond of life
Consider salt while we’re here
What I really came to talk about is kidneys
How way down in our winter caves way down by the creek we have to nourish
Drink from the cup of rest, make lists of words that start with W
Weave worn wear wash whisper witch whey watch wind winter warm well wand want
Whet willow water
Winter is a Water Ceremony
It is a Fire ceremony
A time to tend our vessels
A time to reflect the light of the flame
Here's a poem to the water:
Take this branch of my chest
And dowse the dried flute of my Liver
Strike also the rock of my throat
So that my words may sweeten the bitter.
When I emerge with the dawn with Frankincense
new skin shining buds growing all over the place
Blooming out of that Eastern hill
Roots way down talking to the rest of the world
It is as the Knight of Cups
Winged feet water by my side
Nourished, satiated, vessel in hand
A gesture and a devotion
to let the water of my words form the world I traverse
A song comes out of me glistening in the morning sun
It softens the ground makes moist the seed beds and bellows
Be in loving arms and let your arms be loving!
And there you have the fifth most amazing thing i’ve ever done
Another human habit to Hold
and be held
Other rocks in my pockets:
Sources:
Richard Mandelbaum
Claudia Keel
Samuel Perry
Stasia Warren
Hayley Maier
Margo Greb is a third-year student at ArborVitae. You can find them on Substack at 0rbWeaver.