When you think the trees are many
For varied barks and branches
There appears to be
Really, it’s just one root, one tree

The sweet nut when shelled
Is poison to life
When bare and soft
Is solace, energy to strive

The fruit is pure silk
Yellow, red, orange
Then a bite through the fibres
To taste all the rich milk

Even the name — cashews -
Are we talking about the nut, the fruit, or the tree?
But why separate
What is one and the same?

To confuse is to expand
To expand is to create
To create is to find
Space to grow

amongst digital stalls
where virtual sacks of spices
of rice of beans
were meant to be sold
silently but not quietly
every single one of them turned into disruptors
sellers of themselves
even those who looked
down on the capitalists
have gone into the business
and the market is saturated with all sorts
of product-less produce — new types of goods
from home-grown crops of never-failing ego plants
these are easy to sow and require
minimum manual labour to harvest
all of which make for the uttermost profitable trading
of a coin economists still don’t know how to value

environmentalists are currently measuring the carbon footprint
of this new age e-gommerce
the report will be presented at the next climate change summit
date TBC

rebirth meant the regeneration of my cells
one by one and contradictory too their shedding
layers of my skin were peeled
descaled and left for shells of long-gone invertebrates by the shore
that was my freedom from the past
from everything that’s no more
then like a naked newborn
the sweet water of the sea bathed me
from within
with its pulling
in out
up down
until its breathing made my lungs its home
now far from the placid mirror
I no longer miss the sea
how could I miss what’s already a part of me?

Leaning into the waters that bathed
Those before me
I try to catch a glimpse of their faces
The women of long ago
Who tended the bed of this Earth
And like birds
Pollinated with their ancient voices
The ever resounding whisper of truth
That one day
I too
Will join them
And become the reflection
Of women to come
Searching in these same waters
The eternal song of the world

Why
I ask at night
Do I keep all my past selves
Pickled in a jar
Or jammed-up in conserve pots of glass
When the slightest glance at them
Makes me sick and beg I do of my
Present self not to be what
I used to be
But then during the day
I get hungry
For scoops of what I once was
Knowing where they are — hidden in the food cupboard together with rejected condiments and mouldy bits of spices too strong to mix up with edible food
Still I get hungry for those stale
Rancid memories
Boasting in their expired labels:
Just look how far you’ve managed to come!