What we are, or what we are becoming, sometimes merges with our surroundings. Women are
the modern nymphs that inhabit the cities, streets and rooms of life. The eternal bond that allows
communication between the moon and the earth.
“Fawn” by Erin Rizzato Devlin
You have to spread out as wide
as your body can stretch, until
you become your surroundings,
until the pulse of nature becomes
the psalm of your soul,
until you can no longer resist
the sacred need to run into the
woods and listen carefully to
the hammering heartbeat of
each tree and its reverberating
songs of solitude and
broken wings.
There is nothing crueller
than the ancestral curse of
their roots, the eternal home
they cannot leave behind, and
the bodily sacrifice they must
immolate at the altar of
sedentary resilience;
there is nothing kinder
than the audacious walls that
they build for themselves,
sheltering their tender heart from
the hungry creatures looking
for something gentle enough
to ignite for the warmth
of their guts.
They selflessly carry the
heavens on their shoulders
to make the journey
less burdensome for all the
roamers who, as a sign of
gratitude, listen to the
old storytellers’ nostalgic tales
of when the woods
were tied with
Oneness.
____________________
Share your response to this work, in any form, here
Erin Rizzato Devlin Artist Statement:
Erin, forged by the land of Scots and Italians, and all the places stepped upon in between. Mastering the art of being a woman and writer, through anarchic verses that seek to dig an alcove amongst tender flesh and kind spirits.
