The Key Beneath the Waves

June 30, 2025|Poetry

for the one who remembers

I was called by the song
older than my name,
humpbacks weaving hymnals
through green mountain air
where volcano kisses sea
and all things begin again.

There,
She waited.
The Great Blue Mother,
spanning lifetimes with her gaze,
spoke in a voice that moved like tides:
“You are the key.”

And though my breath caught
in the tidepool of disbelief,
she cradled me in sonar arms
and led me down,
deeper than story,
deeper than shame.

A calf of light swam beside me,
curious as the part of me that still believes
in wonder,
in arrival,
in sacred timing.

We descended,
pelvic floor to ocean floor,
root to reef,
until I became silt and softness,
until I remembered
how to sink and still be safe.

There,
among the hush of ancient currents,
I found a field of oysters,
not one, but many,
not scarcity,
but soul-lineage abundance.

And the oldest among them
opened without fear,
offering not a treasure
but a remembering.

A golden pearl rose from her belly,
entered mine,
not around me,
through me.
Root to womb.
Gate to sky.
Pleasure not as goal,
but as guide.

It nestled in my cervix,
that holy mouth of the womb,
not as ornament,
but as origin.

I felt the pulse of yes.
The ache of power.
The tremble of almost.

And I saw:
even this
is holy.

Even retreat
is sacred choreography.

I am not late.
I am not lost.
I am not too much to hold.

I am the key
because I dared
to keep swimming.

for the one who remembers