birthday present for emma, who always asks for poetry, like i ask for art

[apiphile]

new harvests

what has come will come again

what bends and coils like barbed wire
in the wasteland of old dreams and forgetten promises
collapses under the weight of its own winter self-doubt
and each following spring builds itself
higher and higher.

i've seen a thing or two
bow beneath the sky
and strip themselves to the heartwood
but every hot sweaty summer i have swollen with fresh blood
new ideas

you know how it is. what will come will come. the pīwakawaka shakes his ass over my head
bringing out your dead
bringing the news

they sent harsh words to cut me down,
didn't take;
burnt me to the ground -
and other mistakes:
i grow well in my own ashes
tear their hands when they reach for me

listen: i'm worth bleeding for,
and i'm bloody hard to kill

what has come will come again
it always has,
it always will.

---

she asked for something with blackberries in it; her most recent tattoo is blackberries, a piwakawaka (a death omen bird) and a crossed pen and brush under a skull. the ethos of beign hard to eradicate, and creating in spite.

Comments

[apiphile]

Tak, the recipient did too :)