Eartha Davis
bruadar, bruadar, bruadar
slowly, surely, love limps towards life.
i bathe in heartlight
like mothers bathe
in the promise
of dream-dewed
days. you in the rain,
me on the
porch, slugs sucking
the water
from grass (g e n t l e). all
year, scratching
our names
on forever fields. all
year, moments
multiplying
like buds. seconds,
sky
says, are uncharted
blossoms. and
then: the past
is a tumbleweed
rolling across
the face
of the future. so we
continue. pines
point their pinnacles
towards
infinity. after
all, sky
says, the cure
for living
is more living. and
then: half
a life
is waiting
for
light...
tha gaol agam ort le eòin
The adrenaline of stars, flossing forever with hope string / the silence of waiting / heart hungering for
more tree / more mountain / more river / waiting for world / to unclothe love’s hands / to drip kisses
over dreamers / to say here, here, i am with you / there are heron-coloured oceans / there are wives that hold their
husbands like lost moons / like seedpods / (like) / (like) / wives that hold their hearts like fields / (like) / (like) /
fields made wet by morning / wives that tread time like / (like) / water / wives who close those eyes / o p e n / wives
singing we are wild & we are wounded & we / are / free ⸻ / & sometimes i / (sometimes) / i slurp love
through ventricle straws / fall into a choir of Earth / (forest opera) / mending the moon with ocean /
searching for warm things / loving things / animal things / us and our tributary of tears / us & our
magma wash / eyeballs soft & wide as wanting / & the tide has unknotted herself / (the life has) / &
the song ribbons on ⸻⸻⸻⸻
Eartha Davis is a woman of Ngāpuhi and Celtic heritage living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her debut poetry collection, màthair beinn, is out now with Vagabond Press. Her work has appeared in takahē, Awa Wahine, and Min-a-rets, among others.