Medicine Poem

This is the beginnings of a poem I wrote after my first ayahuasca ceremony on New Year´s Eve. I thank the plant for the insights it gave me and offer my words back to it in gratitude for the beauty and knowledge it shared with me.


Medicine Poem


In the round room

with our backs to the red adobe walls

we prayed to our own darkness,

flowers torn apart by fear

and the losses caused by the lies we´d been told

and all the betrayals necessary

on the path

to becoming whole.


Gunshots cracked above us

like blessings from the king of lightning

on the earth below

who held its breath and wondered

if our prayers would be enough

to keep the darkness between stars

turning.

It was New Year´s Eve,

most of the world stumbled

under fire

in celebration

but the dogs knew the bombs

weren´t far away

barking as the sun flamed

in the black sky

and then collapsed in a fan of colors

that tickled their closed eyes

when they fell to the ground who shook

with fear at our blindness

unable to understand why we wanted

to give our eyes away.

And the fire fueled itself

with shattered eardrums and severed fingers

while the water waited to see

how we wanted it to fall

ready to answer our prayers with drought

or drowning

flowing toward open mouths

with all the answers

and more questions to keep us spinning away

from the sound

then toward it

so close to God

we forgot ourselves

rushing past our ears
like waterfalls.

My death happened

without my knowing

the shape of my life arcing like a rainbow

between two black holes

a raindrop held by a leaf

that breaks as it falls

crushing butterflies and demons

with their own blindness

reborn on the other side

equal and unknown.


A leaf falls, releasing the song held

in a raindrop

and a woman gives herself away because she knows

she is always full

and the silence after is as gentle as an old doe

at dusk

who bends to drink at a mudhole

torn apart by love

immersed in the dark between stars

greeting the wolves.