doves whispering/ as they rest their wings/ in the rafters your silent sanctuary
― Kate Mullane Robertson

A song waning through old trees,
The length of eternity in her eyes,
Dreaming the world into existence.

We sat with broken wings,
Licking our wounds,
And watching the ancient sun rise.

We sat with mending hearts,
Finding strength in the wind,
And learning to fly again.

In dream-
The uterus of the universe
Unfolds its flower to us.

Nimble and scarred,
We drink from its nectar,
And place our hearts here.

Moments are where we hide,
Where we grow,
Where we die,
And where we learn to live.

The shadows of limbs,
Broken and dropping the leaves of fall
Drip on the peripheral landscapes of our inner worlds.

A sanctuary of rebirth.

© Si Matta

“behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.”
— Paulo Coelho

He peels the bark
slowly from around
the knots.

And dreams of the all
the eyes that will
peer through.

Shape shifted
and dreaming.

The dance continues.

© Si Matta

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all.- Stephen King

The birds whispered my name,
As I fidgeted on a cold chair,
Learning of a god dressed in thorns.

As they talked in righteous dictation,
I would pull thorny brambles from dirty hands-
Finding god in the splinters.

I remember how the rain tasted-
Dry in safe beds made from synthetic fibers.

Yet I could hear the birds whisper my name,
Telling me stories,

We forgot to tell ourselves.

© Si Matta

Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves― Laura Esquivel

I use to dream,
but my well
has ran dry.

Like cottonmouth.

I often cough
on words and
pass the torch.

A flame.

© Si Matta

Never lost/ Fading slowly to Silence/ By infinite degrees”
― Ashim Shanker

The sinew of
the moment led
us to this
leather of silence.

Sometimes I forget
your name, but remember
the taste.

A distant drum-

Your heart.

© Si Matta

“His eyes were that colour you can’t see in the rainbow. Indigo.”
― Rainbow Rowell

I remember turquoise,
it tasted blue
in my mouth

as he shoved
it down my
throat.

He gushed in
my hands, unaware
of the water

I held.

© Si Matta

“Sleep apnea is a plague in the western world.”
― Steven Magee

She passed out in
a cacophony of memories.
All the pretty dreams,
Dissected and worn.

She fell asleep to
the sound of old records.
All the pretty covers,
Creased and torn.

She curls her lips
to the worlds she dreams.
All the murmured words,
Bathed with scorn.

She walks unaware of
the stilts of gravity.
All the heavy faces,
Draped and creased.

A mask now covers
her mouth, as her
eyes attempt the
words
of sleep.

Sometimes death sinks uneasy
in the appetite of the lost,
A ritual with
no rite.

It has been since time
that plagues feel the
urge to breath,
eyes blink uneasy
behind
concealed ironies.

© Si Matta

‘The vision, however new and culturally unique, is translated back into a traditional oral format: the new within the old, reflecting the tenacity of oral tradition.’
“Magic in the Mountains: The Yakima Shaman: Power & Practice”, by Donald Hines, 1993

Grandma Shirley and the songs of forgotten dreams.

When I was young, my world seethed with the wonder of nature—the gilded peaks draped in mist, ancient trees resisting the chainsaw’s hum, rivers meandering in dramatic silence as forests fell like rain. These landscapes were soundtracked by stereo speakers blasting Black Sabbath, by motorcycles, Iron Maiden, skateboarding, and punk rock. I’d listen to quaking mountains scream like thunderbirds in 4/4 time and distortion, summoning visions through a haze of psychedelic experiments. (I believe my ancestors used mushrooms as a kind of message in a bottle—or, more accurately, a cap.)

I felt the anger and confusion of being cut off from my ancestors and the spirit of place, forced to bow to an anemic god who never had our Mother’s best intentions at heart, feeding us a diet of forgetting. Old stories would rise up, speaking of days lost to the corpses of progress and manifest destinies, as sweaty bodies slammed together in a prayerful trance. It was redemption from the plagues—at least for a little while.

Check out our band, Cathartes Aura.