the conjure woman

i don’t want to be a writer. i don’t want to tell my stories that come only from memory.

i want to be a conjure woman. my medicine bag filled with ink.

i want to conjure waiting ghosts from the past and tell their stories. i want their spirits to climb inside me and speak through me and my ink.

i want to conjure life as it was and as it could be. write it on the walls of ancient places.

i want to conjure long nights under a deep black starry night sky in a place where electricity wasn’t a thought, where night fires burned to make the shadows alive and tall, and stories of nights gone were told in remembrance of everything ancestral.

i want to feel the chill of winter on my skin and the warmth of summer within my soul.

i want to feel blue and black rain. ink rain.

i want to feel that warm dark rain beating down on me as i sleep under a twinkling canvas.

i want to feel the earth between my toes in that time when shoes were unknown and walking through brush barefoot was authentic life.

my ink is rich with conjured pasts.

i want to live in that time when life was recognizing the gods that reside inside us, the gods we conjured and created and infused with the breath of life, the gods our ink made.

we let our gods send the dark rain.

and it was good.

the ink runs down the papyrus, onto the grass, across leaves and into the rivers. the words and memories return to mother earth. her memory is long, her stories tall, her dark blood is ink. she is the first conjure woman.

the black rain seeds all stories.

and it is good.

Artwork: DeviantArt by ChisSweetArt