"Blood from the Wind"

Here is one of the poems I am submitting to the West Coast Esiteddfod's poetry contest:

“Blood from the Wind”
(inspired by a line from “Culwch and Olwen”)

1.
Shattering
a hundred years
in those seconds

he turned his head
away.

the wind unwound him
blue vessel by vessel-
I peeled his skin off
before.

At the top of the cliff,
I shouted his name
to the crabs
and the rocks
and the bitter sweet sea.

The salt air spit
him back
and
my tears tasted
of blood.

2.
Like blood from the wind,
I blossomed.
From nothing
to something
was born.
Had borne all the sorrows
from all the long years
and buried them in
my womb.

3.
Green mound of sacred earth
shrank, miscarried
as the wind brought
acidic mist.
The swirl ate the world.
No living thing.
Not one,
save
me.

Imagined
someone, anyone
breaking teacups,
sweeping the shards,
a sliver in the heel,
red footprints.

I followed them
but they led nowhere,
to the middle of the wind.

4.
Fog spun,
the world turned-
trapped,
I was wrapped
in a white robe.
Stars belted me
vines tethered me.
I watched the sea swell and freeze and melt and burn.
I watched cities grow and shrink and grow again,
candles, oil, electricity.
I watched tombstones become gardens
and tears become streams,
felt the piss of the world
hiss at my feet.

My soles burned.

They brought great paintings
and offerings
jewels and paper money
crops and livestock
because they thought-
They thought what?
That I could cup the sun?

My arms were too short.

They started hacking at my calves,
looking for the past or the future
in my veins.

They climbed me
leaving holes
driving stakes
plucking hairs
drawing blood…
looking for a
panacea.

5.
Pan smiled at me,
his cloven feet
dancing circles around my life.
The pain, the purity, the promise
the protest…
Perhaps
it could have been easier.

I doubt it.

To be alive is to be used-
bits of bone and blood
pieces scattered,
trying to find
a Whole
through a hole.

Cloudy with a chance of rain,
winds of a hundred miles per hour.

Stay indoors,
find shelter,
hold on to anything
anyone.

Hold on.

I’ll crawl
to you.