Worldwide Wild…
A promise I made in praise of a poem with wild words from all corners of the world…
During the early days of summer, when sunshine and heat were still greeted with a joyful anticipation of eight weeks of halcyon days, I thought I would have time in abundance for wonderings and wanderings. For writing words in the wilderness, in cool, green woodland glades, forests of sweet scented pine and whole meadows filled with wild flowers. Then la canicule arrived and a suffocating, sizzling heat that burnt all the pastures to the colour of desert sand and left all the trees with rusty coloured, paper thin leaves that fell from their branches painting the ground in autumn. All my plans melted under the sun, I photographed little and wrote even less.
Before I melted though, I made a promise to Natalie Eslick to share something wonderful she had created using words written by her subscribers and although many days have past since, I never forget a promise…
Natalie asked if we would send her a few words for a poem.
Words about nature.
Wild words.
Fifty four of us replied. Fifty four people from all over the world wrote their wild words for Natalie to weave her magic with. Whilst I am certain I am not the only one who thought perhaps their words insufficient to be included, Natalie promised to include them all. And she succeeded… more beautifully and more profoundly than I or any of us who sent in our wild words could have ever imagined. Each of our phrases, our words from nature, from our hearts and souls were artfully and breathtakingly interwoven with her own to produce a witchery of exquisite literacy. A poem transcending and beyond, the very core of all our imaginings, filling us with light, love and a desire for wild.
You can read about Natalie’s idea here.
And below Natalie’s woven wild words…
I am the Wild
In the afternoon I came to you,
tempestuous as the sky,
feet bare and searching for wild connection.
Searching for who I am.
Seabirds swirl in the storm calling to my heart,
and the tree’s are breathing, singing, and dancing,
and the tree’s are taking and giving,
forever giving back is the life of a tree.
Windswept and torn, they lean in, years, decades, of weathering Southern storm.
Bruised clouds, rolling, rumbling, crashing in.
Waiting for them to split and pour, to unleash fresh water all over me, cooling body and spirit, cleansing.
I close my eyes, tears rivers down my cheeks.
Your salty paw on my lips, the sweetest delight of all.
I heard a deep primal scream then realised it was coming from me.
A slow soft growl whispers through my grief.
I am forgotten.
Until now the emptiness was overflowing.
A wild thing stretches itself to fill its space in peace.
The unsaid willed to a barren plane and fed to its perpetual, shrieking fire.
The ancient tree spoke out to me through my grief.
'For this what you are born for - to give yourself in time to death'
So I breathed out, that in death's swaddling, our beloved finds beginnings.
This morning, shared pain as
grieving juncos, in a gesture of trust, offered their dead babe for me to bury.
The wind lifts me, tosses me; I wonder what the wind has seen, what it has touched and, perhaps transformed.
I am the wind.
I am the wind,
and I am the wind,
and I am the wind.
I am.
I am
when the roar of the wind turns it all to white noise.
I open my arms wide and throw back my head.
Wild will breathes into my soul, grasping the wind, holding the sun and swimming in the rain.
Gnarled branches writhing as her delicate windswept leaves caress the beckoning night sky.
Buffeted by the wind and lashing rain, rose turns her blooming face to the sky and drinks in the air and water.
Rain slowly erodes my shell, baring my soul to the sun.
My gaze shifts to the roiling stream.
As the water changed direction, it tore at the edge of the bank, trying take the earth along with it.
I am.
I am
adrift in mythic seas and the song of the errant fairy knight, the young Tam Lin, who plays so wild and free.
I am.
I swim among the seahorses, half hidden from my long black hair with a joy for the unknown
I spread my arms wide as a cauldron,
I embody the aquamarine sea, to where these waters roam
Such chaos whispers to my soul ‘be still.'
I find myself in the epicentre of a dance of shadow and light,
embraced by the burgeoning night.
A moose that looked more like a black unicorn came up over the hill and gazed at me for what seemed like an eternity.
I walked along the trail, I could hear only their hooves on the snow and breath bellowing from their nostrils.
I am.
Entranced with the essence of the fireflies’ luminescence
A red bird against the sky. My heart sings too.
Fawn, charcoal, black, the coyote trots the midnight boulevard
beside me.
I lay in the earthy damp between age old roots, swaddled by the wisdom and refuge of the forest.
Crickets sang all night in a contest with the frogs, neither seem to win.
I relaxed into the velvet darkness of the moonless night,
Mesmerised by the mystery and the allure of the one night viewing of the night blooming cereus.
Loamy aroma of marsh mud exposed by the ebbing tide envelops me.
I am.
I'll sit with you on the edge of the cave of all your fears and shed light on the darkest corners of your beautiful wild soul.
Wild hearts have jagged edges, sometimes — sudden stops and rough starts, scars that carve monuments to survival.
But don’t forget the delicate whispers of tenderness that sit right alongside the scars. Those soft spots are also wild.
The storm abated, inside and out, sleep is sweet and deep.
The air is cool and dewy but the sun is warm. So very warm.
Creep now, quietly, softly.
Cracks underfoot, bare new breath with awakening intuition.
The morning stillness, broken only by birdsong, brings to me a smile.
No light ever be wasted, a glimpse is all that is required to breathe beauty into nothing.
As I dance in this floral symphony of melodious colour.
Chasing the muse through wild violet air.
I am.
Early light fringes the lavender flowers, dapples the ground beneath the trees.
The fragrance of wild roses makes my heart sing!
Wildflowers, the little ones, the precious tiny miniature ones that we spot if we zoom in.
The ones clinging to a hollow or a dip or a nook.
Moss - up close - tiny fairy forests in endless shades of greens - I can disappear into your magical landscape.
We think they are living on the edge or lonely, yet they are at ease and look perfectly placed, making the most of their little part of the world.
My home is my Wild Place now I live in my wee heart house, up on a hill, a meadow, no humans in sight.
But I can be wild no matter where I am planted.
There is wild where I will it.
I dreamed that a black bear appeared at my kitchen door, strange that I felt no fear, I really wanted to invite them in, I needed a hug.
I imagined an elk rubbing their antlers against my mailbox, the pitch of roofs as mountains, and natives making petroglyphs on the vinyl siding of my neighbor’s house.
The morning's urban quiet is broken by the screech of a blue jay's cry. My eyes search them out. There is a flash of blue as they fly from tree to tree.
The delicate strength of wildflowers emerging from cracks in the pavement are a compass; leading me along my path, one step at a time.
I am.
The fragrance of Ponderosa Pine in a hot sun.
The cicadas screeched a war cry in the trees, a raucous din, sworn to die in love.
Ah, deep breath.
A simple moment that settles over me.
Grounds me.
Fills my heart.
I must lead with the wholehearted fire of my queen because my wild woman will be instantly discarded.
I am.
I am and I am and I am.
I am weaving, imagining, embodying the wild even where there is more concrete and brick than trees and moss. Even where the night sky is dimmed by street lights.
I am
Rewilding land; clover draws magic with only three leaves.
My Mother, the Earth, and I agree we are enough. Our strength will endure.
Fierce sunny wind rattling my hair and cradling my soul.
Homecoming.
Be well, be kind, be hopeful.
I am not forgotten.
I am unfurling.
I am wild.
I am.
— Natalie Eslick - July 2023
I will write no more… except to say thank you, to Natalie especially and each and every one of you who wrote their words from wild hearts.
Susie xx
