The Mother, Bare

again today 
the mother shows herself
to the sun

reclining as she’s always doing
in her low places, and the ones that tower
in her tangles and openings

her flanks and back shine up and out
because frost melts on her form even in this cold
and it gleams, the slow sweat of her huge self

her broad cheeks, her high forehead, her bony chin rise up in peaks and slopes
her lovely old face rimed with glorious white whiskers
of age attained

sky fingers of light venture to approach her face and body 
her face and body both clothed and bare
to the request of touch from above

bushes and trees wave their bare arms to breathe for her
and hold her tight her with their lacing wanting winding roots

a few green blades of grass
a remnant scrap of yellow leaves in a grove
a handful of blood berries
they all yearn into the light that collects around her mass

they reach themselves
singly and small
into open air
to be melted of white cage, to be liberated by light

see them stretch in their desire 
to be shone through