In which I return to the Earth by Alex Dawson

In which I return to the Earth

I mean a return to soil, to moss and all

the skulls of small animals that lie 

rotting in the ground. I mean a return 

to root. A return to wild. A return to milk tooth

and nail. We have forgotten. There is a story,

and we have forgotten it. In the story, we are

animals. We are descendants of every taloned

and fur-footed thing. In the story, we tread

gently, because we know that the roots of

each tree are the sleeping spines of our

ancestors. We dare not break them. In the

story, we sprout wings because our shoulder

blades are two waning moons. In the story,

plants erupt from the tree rings of our reaching

fingertips. In the story, when they ask us

of power, of money, of influence, we cannot

answer in a language that they understand.

We never learned the language of

oppression. We can only speak in

song.

Alex Dawson is a writer, mom, wildlife photographer and ESL teacher from Toronto. She recently published a nature fact poetry anthology, entitled, “Upon Learning That”, which reached #1 in poetry anthologies on Amazon, and she published her photo-poetry book, “All these Living Things” in the summer last year. Alex has been published by “The Queen’s Quarterly”, “The Bombay Literary Review”, “Turning Leaf Journal”, “Livina Press” and “Gather Poets”. She writes with constant curiosity and a desire to examine the threads of connection between nature, culture and identity. Alex can be found on Instagram and Substack @alexdawcreates.