If I am The Mother* by Rebecca Rogerson

If I am The Mother

then I am holy. Made of moonbeams and shadows, darkness and light, questioned and answered, lost and retrieved;

discovered remains

If I am The Mother

then I am a reflection, a depiction, an inflexion of a cosmos in bliss and chaos, birth and destitution; a primordial sound unleashed to form planet, life, and

  you and me

If I am The Mother

then I am fermented in humanity, and sour the illusions of precipices we’re told that

we cannot cross

Cross the trinity of three’s and return to

the magic of all

If I am The Holy Mother

then holy are we. Us, stardust and tree remains, bones made of crushed shells from epochs of touch from

wind and sea

Break down humble kin and enter ancient caves decorated with mountain mint—find source and hear visions;

we are prophets too

If I am The Mother

then, cups and smudge bowls overflow with lavender to remind us that we are born into

  a dream that is the universe

Plants and moon teach us that holiness is our birthright

If I am The Mother

The Healthy Mother, who does not reign supreme but prays by ancestral fires for the living, the lived, and the dead, then,

no one is left behind

Her wormholes and subterfuge move easily throughout galaxies until she rests;

rest is holy

Vulva laid bare and dick tucked; her mountainous breasts lactate into the

bluest skies

Don’t kiss her feet, instead,

bow to The Mother in us all

If I am The Mother

then we must climb pathless mounds and fall down bathroom drains full of hair, and sit alongside the young and old who

have top surgery

If I am The Mother

holy in nature, then, we are birthing, aborted, infertile, womb-less, womb-unwanted, double-wombed, bold, vulnerable, caring, pretty ugly,

  thirsty and hungry

If I am The Mother

cleanse in the stream near my house, where the Sinixt once lived—where they still

live

and wash where the salmon ran, and Japanese internment camp survivors and Doukhobor ghosts

sip from glacial waters

If I am The Mother

holy as sin, sinfully holy, Talmud divided, Dead Sea Scrolls

faint

then, the side of the temple that she stands on should not matter; life is what we all

reach for

If I am The Mother

there is no other but you, holy beast, tired maniac, isolated soul—who forgets to

tend to others

They’s and them’s tremble because of us, his and hers, while

The Mother carries us all

Holy is The Mother

gender non-conforming, who beckons to the lost ones to search their hearts for

  hope

The universe is a wonder

If I am The Mother

wander inside dark, clotty menses spread across

the night sky

and wonder no more about who is right nor who is wrong, who knows best, nor why men try to dominate

life

They’s and them’s,

take pity on us

If I am The Mother

you are holy, holier than my struggle to

forgive

Holier than lost boys at sea, who forget to make offerings to

MA

If I am The Mother

then, holy are we, grains of sand on beaches of eternity, who fear being shaped into sand castles and loathe

surrender

If I am The Mother

then, holy am I, a pebble,a grist of rice in a universe of plenty;

eat me whole

~ ~ ~

If I am The Mother

discovered remains
you and me
we cannot cross

the magic of all
wind and sea
we are prophets too

a dream that is the universe
no one is left behind
bluest skies

rest is holy
bow to The Mother in us all
thirsty and hungry

have top surgery
live
sip glacial waters

faint
reach for
tend to others

The Mother carries us all
hope
the night sky

life
take pity on us
forgive

surrender

*“The Mother” does not exclusively denote a birthing person/s or “feminine characteristics” but an infinite and magnificent force/s —neither good nor bad—that runs through the universe, our planet, hearts and bodies.

BIO: Rebecca Rogerson she/her is an anti-oppression-based scholar, author, folk herbalist and educator. She lived and worked for two decades in this capacity in South Africa, Botswana and Tkaronto. She taught in the Social Service Worker Program at Seneca College for a decade. She has authored multiple editions of HDEV, a tertiary-level textbook, and co-authored a neuroscientific-based paper about trance. Rebecca has a Master’s in interdisciplinary studies focusing on Bungoma healing practices as decolonization praxis. Rebecca, a neurodivergent who has an invisible disability, adores cultivating plants and channels her rage, despair, and healing efforts into creative writing, amateur opera singing, and disrupting systems of oppression in small but ever-growing ways in unceded Sinixt territory in British Columbia.