Ali Jones is a teacher, music lover, and mother of three. Her work has appeared in Proletarian Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Snakeskin Poetry, Atrium, Mother’s Milk Books, Breastfeeding Matters, Green Parentmagazine and The Guardian. Her pamphlets Heartwood and Omega are forthcoming with Indigo Dreams Press in 2018.
Persephone Tastes the Earth
She lies in the garden, spine to soil,
her body a bundle of spells,
hands twisted in the understory of brambles,
reaching for root healing.
The land has tales to tell,
we are made animal by underground streams,
that weave the warp of the desert,
invisible by day, night seepers,
that thread and babble up to seed life.
Grief unravels time,
in mysteries, dark edges beneath shadows
of hope and judgement, the black horizon
of human capacity, wanting to understand.
Her mouth fills with loam, she speaks
a long forgotten grammar, to name,
to nourish, to honour, to make whole.
Ali Jones