I pick my way beneath an oily wooden dock,
pilings down in sea water,
feet invisible in the dark, searching,
feeling the old belief in danger;
I raise and lower my feet in gravelly sand,
edging between sharp barnacle covered posts
then out on a rotted step
where I hear a great blowing
and in the wide cove a whale,
silver and magnificent
arches its massive fluke
calling me out to open sea.
In the dusky blue of early evening
Venus emerges like a lantern in the west
then Jupiter following loyally
like a light bearing knight;
three fat seals lay above the tide line,
one snorting and belching in his sleep,
dreaming of deep water and fish;
a pair of otters swim beneath them
floating in the flood, waiting for dinner
as Sirius fires in the east,
then Orion’s great scabbard
with Betelgeuse then Aldebaran pointing
toward the twinkling sisters of Pleiades;
the seal disturbs a flock of resting geese
who honk off to the nearby bay
as Mars, Ursa Major, Polaris and more
fill the sky with unfathomable patterns;
when daylight completely vanishes
thousands of stars shine
through the dark form of towering firs
crossed by the shadows of bat and owl,
speaking the secret life of Earth
that was and is and without vanity shall be
within the vast envelope of heaven.
I harvest words within the earth
made of owl wing, moon change,
fallen trees and stubborn grass,
old rocks lending their stories,
wet spray of the winter sea,
speaking in voices more eloquent
than my translation, bowing
before her spreading garment
hoping to sing us all home
in the remaining light.
Ideas give way to feeling
feeling to the essential –
the forever mystery of a moon lit tide,
the rise and fall of life in trees,
Jupiter’s pass through winter’s sky,
endless beauty and the sharp edge
where we dwell, angels yet not;
as sun streams across the ocean
everything lifts in thanks,
the oldest ceremony the simplest
for God is the feeling of being alive,
awakening the openness to this knowing.
My head aches,
the bones in my hand throb,
their stories of punishment
coming out in skeletal code;
an icy fog covers the valley
and as I struggle to rise
from the dream depth into now
the face of an elder
looks back across the room,
etched with years of solitude,
unflinching, no expectation,
pain a part of each wrinkle,
a deeper joy burning from within,
startling me with the awareness
of who I am becoming.
"Grandmother Moon" by Dirk, Blackfoot, Friends of Red Lodge, Dream Time Series
