I should be changing the world
one inner voice keeps saying
but I seemed to decide
some time ago
to let the world change me,
an horrific thought
when courage demands
preserve the self at any cost.
Not the world of block and brick
but the hidden fire within the leaf,
the whale’s eye alive with light
to see in darkness.
Let the shaper shape
with tears and sorrow,
joy and gladness
and before I’m done be
what that cry of hope
one night long ago intended.

    Glass sculpture by Linda Ethier

I feel it in my bones,
the depth of my gut;
healing taking hold,
pushing out the poison
burrowed in the marrow,
stealing summer fat
stored against winter.

I’m empty now,
not strong enough yet
for the months ahead
but getting better.
I’ll stir about,
see what waits in the dark.

The old ones were tough,
they walked the valley bare footed,
rain pounding from the mountains,
rivers running high.
They crossed the coast range,
paddled the Columbia,
broke bread with bears.

All I need to do is get up,
find my legs.
Shouldn’t be too hard
given what the old ones did,
calling me out of my gripe,
singing their songs about the forest
and trails cut into the gorge.

I’ll lay beneath the blanket of rain
for a few more hours or days
or whenever the dream time speaks.
I’ll go where the dark breaks
and the new moon rises.
I can feel it in my bones.

Image by Thomas Low

In a nest beside my heart
a tiny bird lives,
peeping out to the world,
ready to fly into the unmarked sky.
Who I’ll be when the bird leaves
is the writing of a poem,
words left beside the sea
tasting of salt,
untouched by the wind.

Encaustic painting by Eilish Hynes

We leave under bare trees,
the crunch of frozen ground
startling the birds,
reminding us again
of the long way to go
down the old road of memory
to the wood clad shelter
in the deep forest
where wounds will close
in the lightless winter,
the dark a healing blanket,
the pure black night sky
our guardian and guide
as we make the journey home.

Alone in the dark
I greet the morning
hidden from the world,
praying to the silence
to move my will
with the shapeless intent
of the eternal.