Life by Landscape

Megan Bell

I am blind to my days except when there is silence and land
Acres of quiet settling over miles of territory as foreign as my heart in my hand
I believe in the land, myself folded into its hands
My own self struck down in posture pure
Of the blindness that is the world’s lure
Head turned to the side in shame of my days
Of forgetting the words I heard the land say.

Standing on a mountaintop I long to die
Surrender to dirt and feel the land sigh
Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the skies
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Perhaps it was the campfires, the old time hymns
Remember the lake song? The sound of voice echoing through the water
Sometimes I don’t think was human, but
The landscape itself vibrating, brimming with music, calling out for its daughter
Landscape full and taunting me
To do the danger of listening to its song
Since childhood I’ve felt it haunting me
And now I know no wrong.

The only time I speak truth is when I am silent
Staring endless on endless, contemplating the violence
Lurking in the valleys beyond
The land is soulless, the land cannot be conned
I strip myself of my humanity as each day dawns,
Long to bury myself alive to solidify the bond
And deteriorate my body
My blood into the earth, what is it worth?

What am I worth?
Or maybe it was the animal stories
Myths of coyote bringing fire and all the legends about the skies
I never considered them lies
To me, they were never lies
I have been terrified of the wilderness since the day it stole my soul
It changed my eyes and my heart finally became full
And so I am a demon possessed with the secrets of the land
Immune to love and pleasures of the hand
Only the ground can take me, only it can wake me from my human sleep
Mother do not weep, for I was never yours
Through the land’s command my body was born
Wilderness in human form.

But my physical figure is just a body
And when they cut me open they will find granite and salt water and wood rotting.
Whatever it was, I know no less
I will lie down with the earth to my chest
Longing to be reabsorbed, at last knowing rest
Life without land meant nothing, at best.