Monica Mody: What Was Alive
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Nervous System
Once in deep time
scythe
made a cut
And what was alive—vein
turned away from network
of aliveness
to go its own way
sleep away
Someone planted
cut thought in neural
network of Earth
to disrupt
pattern of life
walk away
Scythe did not know itself
or of what it was formed
black shadow figures
ran length of its blade
Turning to catch
slip of shadow
it only slipped
further and further
down the very cut it made
*
To freeze
To flee
To fight
To flee
To fight
To freeze
To fight
To freeze
To flee
*
Free
of patterns
To freedom we will sing
from our bodies
*
A choice will make
the choice that was made
different
Could we choose
every time they say we must
believe exile & throw us into deep cut
to bob back
hold hands
hold eyes
hold light
light up enough to swim
shadows' teeth upon our skin
memory
let ourselves love, love
only love
What will put us together again > what took us apart
Every moment, its still
swirling point—
heart of choice—
ours to feel, sweeten, heal
again
& again
Renewing glory as us
bursting now
Choosing point of power now
Monica Mody, PhD, is the author of KALA PANI (1913 Press) and two chapbooks. Her work also appears in Poetry International, Wyrd & Wyse, Eleven Eleven, Boston Review, The Volta, and Dusie, among other places. She has been the recipient of the Cultural Integration Fellowship Scholarship, the Nicholas Sparks Writing Fellowship, Naropa's Zora Neale Hurston Scholarship, and the Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing. Twitter: @monica.mody / IG: @monicamody
