
Jørn Earl Otte
"From the Mountain" -- April 10, #NationalPoetryMonth

From the Mountain
Rumbling
inside of me
is of a different kind of hunger.
Blood purged, pulled, carved from my veins
my innocent stomach lining, intestines,
ancient heart muscles, they pillaged
without remorse or forethought of destruction.
My thunderous lips muted by the machines
raping my cavities, burning me alive.
Crimson fox, ballet deer, wrestling black bears, simple rabbits,
used to run around my oaken fur, maple skin, evergreen hair,
playing as my children across my wrinkles,
unknowing that beneath their savory footsteps
their future death was being harvested.
Kindred women, children, men who walked over me
for a thousand years, should they arise from ashes, would weep,
they would not believe
the lack of surgical precision in depriving my lungs
their lungs, our lymphatic system, our circulatory
life force, our brain.
I cooked, simmered, cajoled, loved my bituminous insides into being,
and now that I have been gutted, these others say they have reclaimed me.
Meanwhile, my sisters are violated externally.
I watch
lobotomy after lobotomy
performed
for the self-same reason that my soul was extracted.
I don't blame the men. They are as innocent of victims as I am.
Greed is to blame. You can never fill the stomach of evil.
Meanwhile the fox is weary, thin from an empty hunting field.
Meanwhile the deer do not dance.
Meanwhile the kindred are long ago lost to dust.
Meanwhile the rivers beneath me cry for a new baptism.
Meanwhile my sisters and I sit and wonder
if this new life
is worth living at all.