I’m a tempest because
I want it to be instantaneous
Like the online answers
Point and click shopping and
Dopamine hits at my fingertips
But maybe
It is life’s spiral
The corvid burying acorns
In a meadow
Those left to rest and saturate
Crack open
Into oak trees
Accrescent for millennia
With ancestor’s earth tending
And ancient, native beavers
Within and against every so-called age
From missionaries and miners, loggers and trappers
Assaulting abundance, pillaging wonders
Murderers and thieves masquerading as progress
To today — a renewed plunder
I capture her blackened trunk
With this pocket-sized toxic waste
And step within her cavernous scar
Was it negligence, arson, PG&E’s greed?
Man burned me the same, I tell her
Sitting with my back against her heartwood
Hollowed out my insides
But they could not torch my spirit
She says, We remain
Living roots source earth’s wisdom
Evergreen leaves absorb heaven’s mist
Our life, an act of protest
Not allowing man’s destruction to win
Over ragged, unshakable peaks
Deep water she rallies into chaos
Fleeting flowers wobble and wave
Their hellos that will soon be goodbyes —
I stretch open my arms
As the dragonfly
Praying for total transformation
For her mercy
To whisk away in a sweeping gust
My love for you —
But it is unshakable
As the mountains
I will take you beyond the veil —
Where purple lupin lead the sacrament
And aspen leaves flicker in praise —
To speak with the clouds
Of the healing, skyward coil and
Silver stallion’s gleaming eyes
That are the portals which prove
You are ready
Ants, unlimited and active,
Are shooting stars
On a moonless night
Darting swiftly across the vast expanse
Without end or rest.
Eagles, attacked by blue jays,
Shake them by ascending
Thermal, hypoxic air
Between this spinning rock
And infinite dark.
I am the ant,
Digging and hauling
Building and seeking
Unaware of my cosmic counterpart.
I am the eagle,
At lower altitudes
Plagued by pecking and scratching
Transmitted through my psyche.
To know my stardust
And to meet it there —
Delivers me from these daggers
I grasp in fearful hands.
His true Self
Is a prism in a cloudless sky
Its shadow — a rainbow gliding
Across glossy green leaves and crystalline dreams
Featherlight kisses alight on my cheeks
With a shimmering dust
Like butterfly wings
Delicate pink blossoms float
With creek bubbles
Passing beneath a stone arch bridge
Like fairies
Grazing between willow’s soft fingers
Lily pads and lotus flowers catch them downstream
I sit on the grass amongst thousands of petals
Holding open a book I’m meaning to read
Words on the page call to me gently
But all I can think of
Is you
You belong to untamed rivers,
Rippling from mountains
Out to the sea.
I belong to the one who flows with them,
Free yet connected,
His heart beats with me.
Your murmur at dawn
Is pastel poetry inked
Against cumulus clouds
Cast on an ancient lake
Awakening me with
Redwoods, clovers, and ferns
Night’s cosmos disappearing
Into the charm and radiance of your eyes
Tranquil summer rosebud beneath
Our secret morning
Emerge, yellow sanctuary,
Make life soft like peace
