Metamorphosis

First Made Into Language

Metamorphosis

 

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All around us, life
reveals itself in cycles 
and I gaze on at the cracked hull of our
fractured world awaiting the new’s
most certain dawn. A people 
undergoing the fire of change are
being asked to remember
what must split to reveal new skin. 
What happens when we trust the
cycles of change. What happens when we 
prune and water signs of new life.
How often it is that when we feel
encased in darkness,
we are actually buried.
How necessary then 
to trust in the memory of soil.
All it facilitates and feeds.
All it makes room for. How 
necessary to trust that life knows
what to do, its mission being
to proliferate itself. To aid all 
that exists in support of that.

Today,
my heart feels ruptured like 
our buried earth. 
It is a cracked seed I painfully carry
in my center, sprouting roots.
I ask myself what I can water to
support this transformation. 
What weeds of disbelief I can 
pull until I’ve cleared ground,
made room for looming blossom.
I remember, I am being asked to
trust that life knows what to do.
That growth and death are
inseparable bedmates.
No matter the men in white
who sit toiling over restructured DNA,
there will always be irrefutable law.
I believe there are some things
that are nothing but the creator’s 
most certain hand.
In the park at dusk, I notice
the fireflies’ return 
to once lightless Bronx lawns. Earlier today,
I was greeted by 
the familiar face of wild chamomile.
I hold them sacred as messengers.
What wonder, how much time it took
for me to realize
the magic all along 
was life.

- Giselle Buchanan

 

Giselle Buchanan is an Eco-Womanist, Caribbean American writer, artist, and workshop facilitator based in New York. She has performed and held workshops at New York University, Spirit Weavers Gathering, Housing Works Bookstore, The Wing, MoCADA Museum, Chicago Theater, Apollo Theater, Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe and elsewhere. Giselle has published writings in the print literary magazine, Hanging Loose and her poems have been featured on media outlets such as MSG Network and Nickelodeon. 


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