Eight seals fish off the point
as sun breaks through low clouds
on spring camas blue
brightening the old stone
with her delicate color
sending a message through rock
of what may come in a morning.

Two birds float in the channel
as wind lifts the water like corduroy,
behind his old weathered face
the bay stretches to distant islands
across the sea his home so many years;
the problems with being a man don’t change
but within the fold of this larger setting
where air and sea and sun still breathe
the broader fetch over waters reach
keep inviting him: live on, live on!

Walking along the sidewalk
I bump into a drooping branch,
the flower laden plum tree
filling the air with a song of soft color;
stopped by her touch, I pause
in prayer for all she has given
her pink snow beginning to fall
showering the pavement with light.

Healing comes in strange ways,
the bundle of family and friends,
the stranger whose eyes we only met
needing a ceremony of rest
and release to clean the slate.
To carry weight is to be mortal
yet another freedom beckons.
The crows won’t tell you
nor the power over you may desire;
it’s written in a small stone
found on a long stretch of cobbled beach
as if by accident.

The sky closes and gray water churns
the mountains and nearby islands
just outline without definition;
everything is as it’s always been
except the fish do not return
and the birds are few.
What ceremony can I perform,
whose face to carve upon the cedar?
Slick mud covers the roads,
rocks wet and treacherous;
the messages she sends harsh
as years of suffering take their toll.
She shakes beneath Patagonia,
waves shock the Molucca Sea.
I look out thirsting for her beauty
as the tide shifts, the force of ebb taking hold
and down in the roots I hear her drumming,
following the heartbeat, the high keen of her voice
moving through the darkness toward home.

I look to the trees for faith
wondering if their season will flower
if the opening I desire will lift
what lies beneath the pavement
finding a way to open air
of fragile color awake in the light
tenderly pushing toward heaven
rooted forever in the Earth.

Coming and going like sea tides
we move from city to island
and back to flowering trees
awakening so slowly this year
as if blossoms waited a secret sign
for the riot of spring color.
A pair of bald eagles stood the point
looking out to sea, considering;
golden eagle circled again and again
questioning the sky with its wide arc
while seals and otters surfaced,
looking to shore, dark eyes asking.
No one’s allowed in the kitchen,
though hungry are we all;
the soup’s not ready
and even the stars
can’t rush her cooking.