To WOMAN

This poem is for women and is inspired by WOMAN <3 and so I would like to share it with those whom it may resonate with.

FIREWEED (Latin Name: EPILOBIUM ANGUSTIFOLIUM)

by Tin Gamboa (*with a quotation by Pulxaneeks)

I shed these tears that fall to the ground uncontrollably, pulled down by

something so true as gravity.

My heart wells and it feels, it wails and it sings.

It wails not only for me but for you, for collective, for spirit.

I feel not only for me, but for you, collective and spirit.

I sing not only for me but for you, collective, for spirit. Great Spirit.

Crevices in pelvis. Oh wondrous pelvis. If they only knew your strength.

These crevices hold the screams, the cries of powerful mother.

Yet she holds so gently, protects so fiercely, and loves so tirelessly.

These crevices hold the secrets. The secrets sown into our spirits and to the other.

Little do they know the water we hold. The amount we pour in hopes of fertility.

Mother earth, your crevices are vast! Mother earth, your crevices are tiny.

Mother earth your crevices connect the rhododendron to the bumblebee, the

bumblebee to the river, the river to the land, and the land to the oceans.

Mother earth your cycles are unforgiving, and so may I honour my own.

Your rains plenty and so may I cry with father sky for you, and water your soil so it

may be fertile.

“Mother earth you are the strongest woman we know” (quote by Pulxaneeks)

And if we reflect the land, may we water ourselves so we too may endure little

deaths and blossom in full bloom.

Woman. We stand with our wounds, feet planted, heart boundaried and

generous, pelvis weighted.

We offer with our hands, not carelessly, but from our backspace.

We sew ourselves into beauty and light— a weaving for the past, present and

future.

Woman. We are insurmountably beautiful, incredibly powerful.

And if we choose not to yell it from the nearest mountain, let it be our secret.

If they choose not to see the secrets we hold, let these secrets seep into and out

through the cracks of pavement in a thousand fire weed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

I wrote this poem in reflection of the many interactions with women and matriarchs. I wrote this from my chest and tailbone, then out onto a piece of paper.

This poem stems from moments with Michelle Olson, Pulxaneeks, Jeanette Kotowich, and Dom-an Macagne. Other women who come to mind are: Georgia Gamboa, Alma Toyoken, Lily Arboleda, Malina Dawn, Hailey Mccloskey, Salome Nieto, Donna Redlick, Maryann Borch, Starrwind Muranko, Heather Lameroux, and Paola Betita.

I wrote this the day before christmas. I named the poem with the latin version of FIREWEED which is EPOLOBIUM ANGUSTIFOLIUM and read it forest’s mom on Christmas Day — a reading and naming that was her Christmas gift. Maryann can name flowers when we go on hikes and also shares their Latin names. Maryann is one of the many women that this poem is for and is the first woman who read this poem, other than myself.