Saturday 13 July 2019


This World Will Be Saved By Sweepers            

by Melissa Silva


After the fires, I sweep -
I sweep the forest floors

My broom is sacred -
I dip it in holy basil water
I bless this broom,
I bless this
burning room

My braids muddy,
face charcoaled,
flowered apron ripped ragged -
holes in my shoe soles

I dance death -
I jump the broom,
its pine handle my partner

I sweep in spirals -
I sweep away bones and
teeth,
animal ribs,
baby tibias

I sweep away
layers,
layers,
layers

Gone the old growth
Gone the new growth

Beneath these blackened burnt trees,
beneath these twined twisted roots,
beneath this ash and rot

I find the earth
imprinted with
smoking glyphs

I translate,
I transcribe
these hidden words

Run
Save burning horses
Bury water
Eat wild sow thistle
Change course
Migrate, migrate, migrate

  
* * * * *

Melissa Silva is a Poet and a Nurse, living in the Boston area. She has studied storytelling and performance, Oral Traditions, Asian, Contemporary, and Experimental Poetry. She is a co-founder of the Poetry Sisters Collective and was a member of the performing collective Storytellers in Concert. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Tuck Magazine, The Lily ReviewOne Sentence Poems, Bonsai, and othersShe does promotion for Červená Barva Press, Somerville, MA. 

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