I saw you once
in the mountains of Ireland
a narrow stream dropping
like a ribbon of ice,
once in a broad leaf
trunk smooth and silver,
spreading your arms
to birds in their flight;
on the ridge lines of Oregon
green trees forever,
in vines crowding the street
like kids at a fair,
I call you mystery
but not to make distance,
vast and unending
near and far as the air.
I look and keep looking,
the sound when I find you
a ring in my heart
like the bells of a church.
I kneel by your mountains
and bow to your ocean
here where I know you
in the beauty of Earth.

What will rise and what will follow,
what will fall into the yawning deep?
The return comes, the departing go
and in the earth the sound of water
and rush of stones.
It is not your time and not my time;
it is the time of the ancient
and the time of soil.
Veins in the earth open with silver
and the round moon shines
luminescent like gold.
Great fish break surface
and grasslands thrum with becoming.
Broken bones dissolve into wheat
and people gather
to the heartbeat of drums.
Out of the east a bright light comes walking
and up from the sea diamonds emerge.
Remembered and forgotten
the great book closes
and the whole earth opens
to the new story,
ready and waiting
for that story to be told.

No one told the plum tree
about the end of the world
or the fat layered seal
about oceans passing.
In deep water changes come
but a pup still cries
and salmon rush strong
when the last of the snow
melts down to the sea.
I tell myself the story
of a far reach
where her truth
pours down like veins
from the mountain.
Perhaps we should stop
before time runs out
and let what speaks
from the river
tell us once more
about the old way,
the ancient streams
of thought and feeling
on eagles wings
and hummingbird fast.
The plum tree opens
though the sun is hot
and the soft red fruit
slowly ripens.

The sea shows the edges of her skirts
and the slightest bit of skin
beneath the rumpled taffeta
of wind driven waves
and the bright sun of summer,
but her deep familiar
lies hidden in the depths,
rising on a wet-skinned seal
or on the jagged rocks
left to dry by her departing tide.
She and the moon are sisters
and last night I saw them dancing,
the long white legs of the moon
stretching across the open water,
the sea shining in the night
with a happiness hidden from day.
I lumber along the shore
like a two-legged dinosaur
munching my grass
as the great wheel turns,
the light of my time
about to go out,
but I’ve met the sisters
and dropped into their deep familiar
with none of the eagle’s grace,
only the bumbling thankfulness
I know in their mystery
and the desire they stir
to live on and rise.