Susan Elizabeth Howe Carter 1 Sarah Carter Laura Stott MENG 6940 July 18, 2022 Critical Introduction: Confluence, A View of the Feminine Divine This project is a collection of poetry centered around and engaging the idea of the divine feminine, specifically in the Latter-day Saint (LDS) faith. In this introduction, I will focus on links between my collection and 1) the tradition of poetry focusing on Heavenly Mother, and 2) female-focused devotional poetry in general. My specific analysis examines aspects of sound, language and form. Somewhat uniquely among Christian denominations, the LDS faith believes not only in God the Father and Jesus Christ as individual divine beings, but also includes a belief in a Mother goddess. This theology is not discussed in scripture or official sermons often, and instead is mainly perpetuated and explored via poetry and hymns. An early female church leader, Eliza Roxy Snow wrote “Invocation, or the Eternal Father and Mother”--which is now part of the official hymnal and has long been pointed to as the first publication of this doctrine, and contemporary poets in the Church continue to write about God the Mother and explore Her significance in their spiritual lives. In the last fifty years there has been a resurgence, contemporaneous with the second and third waves of the feminist movement, of poetry and other exploration of concepts of LDS Heavenly Mother and the Divine Feminine in general. My objective in this project has been to open a window to examine Her from a new perspective, while referring to and better understanding the poetry that already exists in the Carter 2 world, and honing my craft to better discover and portray the insights I and readers may observe. As Marianne Moore wrote, “art is but an expression of our needs; is feeling, modified by the writer’s moral and technical insights” (339). The Intermountain West is high desert, but home to many rivers and streams that begin as melting snow and muddy springs in the mountains, flow through tributaries to combine with other streams to rivers. The Virgin, Green and Colorado rivers are so powerful that they carve the stone into deep canyons, but where two rivers come together, they slow down, spread out, and mix, influencing each other and the landscape before growing fuller, stronger and rushing on through the parched desert. This idea of confluence appealed to me in my search for both personal and theological connection to the idea of a feminine deity–a Heavenly Mother, Goddess Eternal. While this doctrine has been claimed and explored for almost two centuries in the Latter-day Saint tradition, it has been kept alive mainly by poetry and art, rather than scripture or sermons. I hope that each poem in this collection–or even each reading of a poem–can act as a small stream of understanding on the subject, and perhaps cause our view to shift as it reveals new details. In naming this collection of poems Confluence, I also chose to organize it into phases of a river, as it grows from a seasonal tributary to a breathtaking flood–that as our perspective shifts over time, our awareness and discernment of both spiritual matters and poetry grow. 1. Sound I was inspired to explore the sound of my poetry by the Psaltery and Lyre reading series online, where Dayna Patterson reads the classic “Invocation” by Eliza Roxy Snow and others read other LDS poems aloud (Patterson). This led to a practice of reading my own poems aloud, Carter 3 considering the elements of sound. I was seeking the music of words, specifically noting rhythm (which requires pauses, as well as emphasis), rhyme, consonance, and repetition and how they connect sound to meaning in the poem. One of the shorter poems in my collection, “Queen of Heaven” uses internal rhyme to connect “earth ruptured to birth mountains”, a sort of double-basting of the words to add texture, as well as connect them naturally in the line. The added consonance of repeated S and C sounds: “comforter of spirits bruised” and “consume the sacrificial lamb” brings to mind a rushing river or the popping of a hearth fire. This is a technique that I’ve seen used by many poets and authors, but most recently I noticed it in Ada Limon’s “The Tree of Fire.” Here the poet connects the unconscious presence of her lover to the revitalization of her attention to the natural world: “under still / sleep-stunned sheets / coaxed all my colors back” (15). The connection between the Divine Feminine and natural world is prevalent in poetry and figurative language; Mother Earth or Mother Nature, fertile and loving, providing for us, her children. Early understandings of the Divine were often feminine, especially where they ruled over the natural world–Amaterasu is the Japanese goddess of the sun, wind and nature, Oshun is a patron of the river that flows through West Africa and bears her name, and Pachamama is the Incan/Peruvian mother goddess of the earth–planting, harvesting and earthquakes. The sounds in Queen of Heaven mimic natural sounds, and other poems, like “Confluence”, “Apis Regina” and “Wildfire”, use both sound and imagery to bring the earth into focus as a proxy for Heavenly Mother, the experience of being in the presence of a feminine deity. In this collection, my hope was that these connections and resonances will enrich the idea of a deity who is both violent and loving, warm and hot enough to burn. Carter 4 Similarly, in reading Janice Allred’s “Names of God the Mother” (Dove Song, 151), I noticed the rhythm and repetition and attempted to make that part of “Book of Sarah.” Allred uses paired titles or names to draw connections: “Sanctifier / Purifier”, “Zion Above / Zion Below”, and “Mother God / God the Mother.” I was hoping to use the repeated rhythms of female names to counter and call attention to the male names that dominate the LDS scriptural canon. Rachel and Kathryn fell neatly together in trochees, then dactyls Carol Lynn, Emma Lou, and Emmeline, followed by Martha–a return to the two-syllable trochee. Miriam, Judith, Dina and Asenath bookended simple two-syllable names with the three-syllable, followed by two more Old Testament trochee names, Leah and Hagar, and then the definitive, single-syllable Eve. The final lines utilize this repetition as well with repeated prepositional phrases, “written on . . . with . . . in . . . / written in . . .” to convey specificity as well as particularity in the feminine spiritual experience–although every person experiences the divine in their own way, there are whole swaths of experiences that go unrecorded, unheard and unhonored in our current cultural paradigm. 2. Language At the beginning of this project, I looked for both how formal, scriptural language was used or could be used in poetry, and where the contemporary speech of every day had its place. I was aware of poems like “Wo, Wo is Me, The Mother of Men” by Kathryn Knight Sonntag that consciously imitate scriptural language in the LDS tradition: “expand with joy / gone out of me– / righteousness abiding on my face” (67). The words and syntax are similar to language of the King James Translation of the Bible or the formal diction in the Doctrine and Covenants. Carol Clarke Ottesen, in “A Name and a Blessing”, uses the language of sacramental blessing and Carter 5 reversal of adjective-noun placement in her poem about an infant blessing: “Love this your body / . . . held together with one strong cord. / Love female;” (63). This arrangement emphasizes the sacred nature of speech when used to bless and praise, but also the common nature of worship, that it can be part of everyday life. “Priestesshood Manual” was a conscious imitation of the formal instructions given to LDS church members holding the priesthood (male only), but shifted to explore, what would be different in a female-led priestesshood? Phrases taken from the scriptures directly are juxtaposed with earthly images that are often seen as unclean, or certainly not sacred. “You will feel your ordination in the blood between your legs, / the tears that water your pillow by night, / the pillar of light descending.” These verses are intended to examine scriptural authority and assumptions about what is spiritual and what is part of the mundane, mortal experience. Also, I could see that many of the popular poets writing about LDS Divine Feminine often used the diction of everyday speech, like Carol Lynn Pearson’s “A Motherless House”: “I yearn for the day / someone will look at me and say / “You certainly do look like your Mother” (4-5). Rachel Hunt Steenblik and Ashmae Hoilland use similar conversational style in their poetry–the language not of prayer, but of family members and close friends expressing simple wonder and interconnection. As I was considering the words that would become “Art of Contraction,” I was drawn back to the work I’ve done as a midwife, supporting and guarding women as they give birth. I wanted to include both the customary language I often used to describe and comfort mothers, as well as the elevated forms of sacred writ in this poem, so it includes phrases like, “count them if it helps” and “your spirit descended on you like a dove.” Birth is a messy, sometimes loud and demanding process, but I would posit a sacred one for both mother and child. It is a formative Carter 6 rite of passage for many who give birth–the pains of labor are often the most difficult thing a mother has endured to that point, and their determination to move through the experience can be helped or hindered by those around them, but the process of childbirth is objectively out of anyone’s control. I wanted to convey that celestial-within-terrestrial experience through the syntax and symbols of blood, scars and childbirth. 3. Form Another major part of this project was the exploration of form in poetry–experimenting with forms such as haiku, pantoum, list, hymn, and duplex. In undertaking a survey of LDS poetry surrounding the divine feminine, I found a definite shift between mid-1800s (the Joseph Smith era) and later 1800s (Brigham Young/Victorian era) from hymn-like poetry describing Mother in Heaven as equivalent in power and dominion with God the Father, to poems that Susan Elizabeth Howe noted “descend into Victorian stereotypes” (Dove Song introduction, 17). Images shift from describing a powerful, enthroned goddess to presenting a compliant, nurturing wife and mother. But all of the 19th century poetry was formal–usually in rhyming couplets or quatrains, sonnets and similarly set forms. As American poetry moved toward free verse in the 20th century, in LDS poetry there seems to have been a pause on the subject of Heavenly Mother until the 1960s and 70s, when a resurgence of interest led to more open verse forms which explored the doctrine and belief in a mother goddess. Here I’ll examine three of the formal poems in this collection: a pantoum called “Lullaby,” a duplex: “Wildfire,” and a hymn, “Our Mother Goddess Gleaming Bright.” Carter 7 The Malay form of pantoum has been appropriated and brought into French and English poetry especially, but the “interlocking refrain” produces a circular arc to the pantoum that returns to initial idea, and interweaves everyday imagery with ideas of meditative significance. In Gotera’s essay examining the form, he notes that the pantoum lends itself to “subject matter that is obsessive, naturalizing the mannered repetitions” (257). I began writing my poem “Lullaby” in the memories of new motherhood, and my experience with postpartum anxiety. I read “Incident” by Natasha Trethewey and “My Brother at 3 AM” by Natalie Diaz while working on “Lullaby”, but couldn’t seem to avoid the first person narration for this poem. I was drawn to “Song of Creation”, in which Linda Sillitoe narrates as an absent third person (or possibly mother) that addresses a child directly. While not a pantoum, the repeated lines addressed to “my child” are set to answering questions about who created the world and how (Discoveries 96-97). Similarly, “September Twilight” by Louise Glück is a first person address to her own thoughts: I gathered you together; I can erase you as though you were a draft to be thrown away, an exercise” (60-61). While “Lullaby” began as a harkening back to obsessive feelings of worry about my baby in her cradle, it carried forward through the repeated (or near repeated) lines to the present, releasing my own dreams and writing into uncertainty. The circular repetitions convey that anxiety, as the dream is portrayed as a baby, and the storm is recognized as part of the dream as well. I wanted to write “Wildfire” in a format that reflected the movement and development of a spreading fire. I drew the image and phrase, “spread my name like wildfire” from Ashley Mae Carter 8 Hoiland’s “In the Temple” (Dove Song, 299) and the idea of a blaze launching embers in the air to light more fires obsessed me. After reading Nola Wallace’s “A Psalm”, I considered using a chiastic structure (Dove Song, 117). Chiasm is based on the Greek letter chi(χ) or X, indicating the lines often reflect or mirror each other, bringing focus to the central idea of the poem. In Wallace’s psalm, it looks like this: 1 At Heaven’s throne, I cry for wisdom. 2 O Father, give me your instructions, 3 O Mother, teach me of your laws. 4 Let me know You that I may know myself. 5 If you are silent, then I am bereft. 6 Have I denied you, Mother, unaware? 7 Have you stretched out your hand, and I not seen? 8 Have you cried vainly at the gates, and I not heard? 9 Or have I heard, and yet not known your voice? 10 O Mother, give me your instructions, 11 O Father, teach me of your laws: 12 That I may follow, whole of heart. As you can see, lines 2 and 3 parallel lines 10 and 11, and lines 4 and 9 both reflect the idea of knowing. The words and lines mirror each other, lines 5 and 8 –silence and not hearing, until they converge in the center of the poem–a sort of highlighting of the core premise of the poem– the question, has the poet missed a sign from her beloved Mother? However, as I worked through drafts in this form, I found that the chiasmus form was leading toward convergence, rather than expansion and dispersion as I’d wanted. Moving on to a duplex form (created by Jericho Brown), I chose the repeating couplets form to show development and movement, a sort of expanding and spreading as a page of a book lights not only the book, but a wild, dry field of the world and even the poet aflame. Carter 9 The duplex is a new form that renders the musicality and structure of the ghazal, the sonnet, and the blues on a single plane. The poem starts with a couplet of two distinct lines. The second line is repeated and a new line is added, and then repeated until there are seven couplets of nine to eleven syllables each (Williams). Often the “repeated” lines are more loosely imitative, using the same words but in a new order, or mirroring part, but not all of the previous line. As I worked this poem, I found my couplets were joined more by sensory type than word or form, the lines describe first smells: “burnt ink and ash twists my nostrils”, then sounds: “bitter sirens bellow . . . Hot wind howls”, and finally the images “[p]archment yellow stalks curl in page corners”. Rather than leading to a central, convergent idea, I wanted the repetition to demonstrate the propagation of the fire or idea. However, as I came to the last couplet, linking it to the first line was harder and harder. Finally, I allowed an additional line to complete the poem on its own. This pulled the poem clearly out of the duplex form, which had become a constraint rather than a tool, and used it as a frame to build on, but extended it in a way particular to this poem. This poem wasn’t about to close neatly and return to the beginning–fires don’t burn up and leave things the way they were before. It needed to expand into new spaces and “end” with the same spark image that began it–teaching me that the form should be used to serve the poem rather than the other way around. In reading poems from devotional poets in the LDS and other traditions, I found many hymns and other formal poems of worship. But I didn’t arrive at the idea of writing one myself until I read “Hymn of Welcome” by Susan Elizabeth Howe and Linda Hoffman Kimball, written to the meter of the LDS classic “If You Could Hie to Kolob” (the melody is even older, dating back to the Middle Ages), but instead offered to honor new infants being blessed in a congregation (p. 32 in Exponent). Another poem that influenced my attempt at a hymn was Carter 10 “Shadowland”, by Emmeline Wells (Discoveries, 62). “Shadowland” is written in a double sestet, a form common to the period. Wells’ spiritual verse describes her deeply personal prayers for revelation, and follows the form tightly–it reads like a hymn or psalm. I call in the night-time for strength from on high, To open the flood-gates of knowledge for me. I wait, and I listen, but only the sigh Of the murmuring winds, in quaint melody, Chants the song of my heart, tho’ its music is clear, We’ve lived heretofore in some loftier sphere. I made a conscious effort to imitate the meter and rhyme scheme to “All Creatures of Our God and King” in composing couplets that evoked kinetic awe in “Our Mother Goddess Gleaming Bright”, for example: “Round, full to bursting with thy grace, / Wild dancing, shatter in thy praise.” While many of the hymns and worship poems I read cultivated a staid reverence, I wanted to express the wildness of a deity unbound by calm expectations–a Woman of the Wilderness, of rain storms, ringing bells and shooting stars, a different perspective, perhaps, than what has been expressed before. In bringing together this collection, I found that the poems were more than a mixture of my thoughts, observations and feelings–they drew on the read, heard and imagined symbols, visions and rhythms of poets before me, and possibly those who will wonder and compose from now into the future. From a trickle of words, I offer this stream –carefully formed and carved in these pages to gratefully join the flood of understanding and inspiration that flows deeper and richer with each voice and ear. Carter 11 Works Cited Chadwick, Tyler, Dayna Patterson & Martin Pulido, editors. Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry. Peculiar Pages, 2018. Diaz, Natalie. “My Brother at 3 A.M.” Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56355/my-brother-at-3-am. Glück, Louise. The Wild Iris. HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. Gotera, Vince. “The Pantoum’s Postcolonial Pedigree” in An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Finch, Annie & Kathrine Varnes, editors. University of Michigan Press, 2002. Howe, Susan Elizabeth & Linda Hoffman Kimball. “Hymn of Welcome” Exponent II, vol. 30, no. 2, Fall 2010, p. 32. Retrieved from: https://www.the-exponent. com/exp2/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Fall-2010.pdf. Howe, Susan Elizabeth & Sheree Maxwell Bench, editors. Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women. Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for LDS History, 2004. Limón, Ada. Bright Dead Things. Milkweed Editions, 2015. Moore, Marianne. “Feeling and Precision” in Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry, edited by Melissa Kwasny. Wesleyan University Press, 2004. Ottesen, Carol Clarke. “A Name and a Blessing” Dialogue, vol. 31, Winter 1998, p. 63. Retrieved from: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/a-name-and-a-blessing/. Patterson, Dayna. “Dove Song Reading Series (Entry 5): Eliza R. Snow's ‘Invocation, or The Eternal Father and Mother’.” YouTube, uploaded by Mormon Poetries, 25 April 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siJ1iMge8LY. Pearson, Carol Lynn. Finding Mother God: Poems to Heal the World. Gibbs Smith, 2020. Carter 12 Peterson, Daniel C. “Nephi and His Asherah,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: vol. 9: no. 2, 2000. Retrieved from: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol9/iss2/4. Sonntag, Kathryn Knight. A Tree at the Center. By Common Consent Press, 2019. Trethewey, Natasha. “Incident”. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55928/incident-56d237f70bd32. Williams, Candace. “Gutting the Sonnet: A Conversation with Jericho Brown.” The Rumpus, 1 April 2019, retrieved from: https://therumpus.net/2019/04/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-jericho- brown/. Carter 13 Confluence: A View of the Feminine Divine Wellspring 14 Lullaby 15 Their Mother Will Return 16 Cut 17 Ode to My Scars 18 Confluence 19 Confluence 20 Queen of Heaven 21 Pomegranate 22 The Body Divine 23 Swell 24 Priestesshood Manual 25 The Book of Sarah 26 Books Unread 27 Apis Regina 28 Torrent 29 Our Mother-Goddess Gleaming Bright, A Hymn 30 The Art of Contraction 31 Wildfire 32 The Sound that Birthed the Universe 33 Carter 14 Wellspring Carter 15 Lullaby In a cradle adrift in the waves of the sea I set my dream sailing, thumb in her mouth, No way to know where or if she’d be found But how could I keep her? Biting my nails, I set my little one sailing into a savage, fearful storm. How could I keep her when I’d failed to secure? Into the dismal, wailing storm, Sleep, sleep, my daring one. I’d rupture to keep you safe, I could only let you into the typhoon Sleep, my darling, sleep, As your cradle curves through waves of the sea I could only send you into the dream No way to know where or if you’ll be found Carter 16 Their Mother Will Return If sunbeams were made of lemon Drops they would fall in shape of Poplar leaves Drift like aspen snow shiver with a Shh baby shhh Arcs and scallops Gold leaves flaky as pie crust Gooey cinnamon The river cuts softly Your words warm and Love me beauty Shhh Love Me Carter 17 Cut She wails as I scissor our cord thick like hempen twine No delicate membranes or gauzy veil My hands ache and shake Blue eyes, the bluest eyes that ever shook me awake from decades of faint, shout at the dry the cold noise the searing lights the sharp bleach stink Now not only mine “I’m going, mom,” pricks my chest with a dozen needles Bright dyed hair over her eyes like stained glass frames My fingers shake and eyes ache I want to scream curses at the scalpel slice dissecting us the hot salt silence the hollow dark the taste of copper piercing my tongue Carter 18 Ode to My Scars A softball-size patch, tailpipe brand on my calf when I was six weeks uncertainly pregnant. Only one for four had carried, easy decision to roll the dice once more. Twenty-two feels invincible even after a temporal lobe infarct –a cerebral accident. A thumbprint jammed into my left side brain, dead gray cells (they were wrong, the drug people, they CAN grow back) just above my ear. Grease splash on my right arm only stays pink when the sun crisps my skin in late summer. Two eighteen-gauge stars, left antecubital and right hand, below the first finger divots–needle after needle, year after year. And the one no one sees, my ruffled opening torn bottom, sides sealed back together each time I made a life. Each time, I thought I’d split in two a pistachio shell with only the papery skin left inside. Carter 19 Confluence Carter 20 Confluence Surrender of rock Mercy of flood Muddy red cascades through bone-laced canyon yank leaf from root, frothing fury poured out upon the earth. Rollicking sobs stitched together with yucca sinew bitten through. The temple of your body, Mother never loved without wounding, eternally scarred by sacrifice. Feel the prints of powder burns in my palms, the bloody thorns-unjust trial and fury torn-tangled in my hair. Taste gall’s bitterness turned sweet as grace. Carter 21 Queen of Heaven Salve my heart Comforter of spirits bruised Wildfire devouring, blackens the very air Earth ruptured to birth mountains Flame come down from heaven To consume the sacrificial lamb. Carter 22 Pomegranate Scrape fingernail over capsules of nectar soft fibers of sweet decision in Eve’s trembling hand Carter 23 The Body Divine pillar of lightning photons scorch blaze anointing pour day onto me twilight velvet eye blinks and cannot look away gashed into secret sky salted turquoise depth pitch and hum lyrical thrum tide swell pulse shudder pulpy verdant heart waxy-leaf-veined fairy wings coruscating sheen sunfire sunflower solar wind sings a flare searing flush of gold primeval ocean creation’s desert curves down flows between my hips I am creation ripe citrus expands delight sensual honey swarm I am that I am berry mud shit spatter blood blesséd that I am Carter 24 Swell Carter 25 Priestesshood Manual There is no form for what you speak, where to put your hands, how to begin. Every touch can be a blessing. Every word, every thought, as you were taught before. You will feel your ordination in the blood between your legs, the tears that water your pillow by night, the pillar of light descending, the moment you know how to act for Her. There is no hierarchy, no offices, no divisions. You find your place around the quilting frame, on the plains and in the mountains, at the stove and the sickbed and garden bed, in the office and the halls and in the streets. Dance by the waters, take a timbrel or lyre, and raise your voices to Her. This is the joy that called you from that world to this one and it cannot be restrained. As far as records are concerned, write or tell what you have lived and learned. Perhaps those who come after will read it, or maybe not, but it is still worth the writing. Every place you make a home is holy. Every word you speak in love is truth. Carter 26 The Book of Sarah The Book of Rachel The Book of Kathryn The Book of Carol Lynn The Book of Emma-Lou Books of Emmeline and Martha The Book of Eliza The Book of Emma The Book of Mary The Book of Elizabeth Books of Esther, of Ruth and Jezebel Books of Miriam and Judith, Dinah and Asenath Books of Leah and Hagar The Book of Eve written on olive leaves with the tears we wept in the garden on the fleshy tablets of our bodies written in the price we chose to pay Carter 27 Books Unread The Book of Amber Rose and all amniotic pages blotted with slow-clotting grief. The Book of Catoneras, called Catherine by her new, Christian husband. He called her father Sachem Wyandance and her land New Netherlands. The Book of Mrs. Jared Siegel (1801). She had a first name and I’d like to call her by it, learn what she knew about obedience and weight management, dragging a wagon and thirteen children west. Where are the books of unknown midwives? The mothers, the daughters and sisters? Where are the wet nurses, the scullery maids? The queens and priestesses? The generals, the artists, the engineers, the teachers, the insurance adjusters, the presidents-pro-tempore? Where are the books of the enslaved? The ignored? The raped and left for dead? I’ll visit the celestial library and search page by page. Carter 28 Apis Regina The queen makes no decisions She orders no laws She only lays eggs thousands per day She only is the center point the pole around which the colony returns and clings the scent they follow for pollen-laden miles Carter 29 Torrent Carter 30 Our Mother-Goddess Gleaming Bright, A Hymn Our Mother-Goddess gleaming bright, Shine on us with thy perfect light, Alleluia! Alleluia! Thy bonds of mercy with us sing, Thy bells of joyful glory ring, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, praise Her! Alleluia! Round, full to bursting with thy grace, Wild dancing, shatter in thy praise, Alleluia! Alleluia! Might sparks like fire within our veins, Surrender to Thee celestial pain, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, praise Her! Alleluia! Thy blooms of comfort start to flower, We drink deep the drenching shower, Alleluia! Alleluia! Teach us the path to hopeful peace, Where hands and tongues may find release, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, praise Her! Alleluia! Carter 31 The Art of Contraction Ride the wave - open like a blossom but the name itself surges closed, tightening in your fist. Try to soften, sweet in your sighs like the night, the touch in the moonlight that brought you here, sweating and grasping for any steady hand. Imagine a candle and blow slow and strong to see it jangle and fitfully wave. Another breath, count them if it helps. You are here with all who breathe, all who create, all who suffer, here on this planet, a rock waltzing through stars. You are not alone because you were born. You were squeezed tight and you surged into the light, and you were drawn from the water, and your spirit descended on you like a dove. Breathe again, and feel the softness you were promised, past weight, past pain. Rest, rest now, and replenish yourself, replenish the earth. The next is coming. Carter 32 Wildfire I hold a match to the first page, and without a flicker, it catches. smell of burnt ink and ash twists my nostrils, acrid shouts and bitter sirens bellow in the shell of my ear, echo in the valley below like seagull screams. Hot wind howls, running riot, distracts me from floating ember settling at the back of my neck. A sliver of sulfur-hot metal in my dried-sweat hair catches and crunchy parched grass crumples like paper. Parchment yellow stalks curl in page corners and float away. My eyes wide–seeds exploding out of a cone, filament wings spread. There is no unreading, unburning–the cocoon is cracked and the words spray hot on the breath. You are known. Spread my name like wildfire. I lit the page, and it lifted from my hands, hot sparks on their way to light the sun-soaked field. Carter 33 The Sound that Birthed the Universe This is the note that cuts like a scalpel This is the sound: the bang that triggered time and space, the vibration that separated light from darkness, the first scream, lungs punctured with air, He said Push. She said I can’t. The midwife angel Gabrielle said When you’re ready. A rip through spirit and matter C above high C a veil rent in two This is the sound– I can’t a cry– I Am