This episode of Unfolded featured a collection of poems by artist Rachel Smith. You can follow her on twitter here, and listen to some of her music here. This is part 1 of 2. You can listen to the show on itunes, Homebrewed Christianity or Stitcher. Enjoy!

…

 

he built a boat

and set to sea

on what he’d

carved out of life

 

he was going to discover

what there was worth sailing for

where it was

the sun slept

he was going to discover

exactly where it was

the earth was born

 

he spent his days

floating in blind waters

too deep to drop anchor

always looking ahead

convinced the sea behind him

was where he’d left it

but it was always beneath him

pushing him in lonely circles

for days of dizzying hope

a victim of current

 

he had forgotten the stars

neglected the subtle way

with which they could guide him

he never looked up to discover

the middle of nowhere

is still somewhere

beautiful

when he sleeps at the center

of everything

where he slept

the sun slept

where the earth was born

so too was he

at the center of everything

beautiful

 

…

 

he stood,

a pillar of charcoal

in this blinding hour

i was so pale

the sun shone through me

shadowless

i moved around him

brushing by

in a delirious dance

where we touched

strokes of hand and face appeared

as in a sketch

dizzy

i stepped back

covered in ash

and able to see myself again

 

…

 

whose child is this?

camouflaged against the walls

of his clean white wilderness

who, sterilized and sunblocked,

never knows to take a breath

of unrecycled air

the son of angles

whose first word is his name

and who knows he’ll live forever

where did he come from?

trailing behind him

an electrical umbilical

pumped alive with battery acid

synapses firing

from remote locations

how is he walking the streets?

pale as a simulated medieval king

i watch him pass,

my own child in tow

dirt feet and holey knees

face sticky with wild adventure
 

whose child is this?

acutely aware

there are no more frontiers

so comfortable

with his possession of this world

he reaches up

plucking another from the sky

this giant,

over exposed and under developed,

who travels round the earth

in three steps

yawns at the sunrise

complains when it rains

who keeps his mother around

for his analogue needs

and who won’t step into the bushes barefoot

for his curiosity takes him

only as far as the door

he turns back toward us

analytical and anxious

i wonder

who my child is

in the eyes of this ghost-faced prototype

and if they’ll ever meet again

 

…

 

somewhere over Kentucky

the sky drew a deep

yogic inhale

and showered the road

with her thunderous welcome

reminding us

that she knew how to sing

before we could speak

 

…

 

i watched her fold in on herself

curling in and around

every branch of the skyline

until she had the grip

to pull closer to earth

she stood on our roofs

dressed in greens and greys

sobbing like she couldn’t bear

to have been that far away from us

for much longer

howling

like we meant to keep her there

she found my only open window

as she threw herself

against the faces of sleeping houses

i let her crawl in

and lay in my bed

settling next to me in search of quiet

 

cradling the storm until she slept

i was mother to something bigger than myself

which is to be a mother at all

 

…

 

untethered by the sea

she spit me ashore

wind-whipped by salt and sand

another stone ground to dust

exhausted

i laid my head to rest

beneath a cloud of gulls

blocking the sun

flying against the wind

screeching a thousand needs

with my eyes closed

and my ear to the ground

i heard your step

reverberate

through every grain that held me

i raised my head in disbelief

but for miles all i could see

was the ocean that pushed me away

and gull prints in the sand