Self Portrait

Olive

I am as the Olea Europaea --
      stout, wizened, lately resilient to fire.

I feel my drupe clinging, heavy, a burden
      as unshakeable as my gnarled, briny roots.

I feel the weight of stone and the push of expectation
      like one who must birth and feed.

I long to tear myself from these mountain bluffs,
      like one of bruised and aching limbs,
      like one so weary screams release –

Oh, to drop into the arms of my ocean mother,
      to drift as wood in her current embrace
      to bob about her foaming moonlit tides—

-- I fear I’ll linger
    as one left truncated and pitless and too eager to press.

Fio