The world awakes
to headlights,
the sound of birds
and coffee makers.
In the dimly lit east
Venus holds her place
as the night sky fades.
I look from my window
through the bare branches
of the plum tree.
Just one of the heralds,
I call in the morning,
cranky with pain
and dull of thinking
yet like an old wolf I rise,
crane my head into the sounds
and smells of whatever stirs.
I see black winged crows,
hear the roar of a bus,
bless the pilgrims
on their morning journey
and announce myself
to the gods of the day
lest they forget I’m here.
Watching the dark dissolve
my old self drops away
into the web of root and rock
and I’m fed to the earth
for the flowers of spring.

Son of the Morning
thought Custer at the Bighorn,
ambition like his hair
a trap of fool’s gold.
Better to become silence
beside the roaring river
where pride turns to soil
and the old ways still hold.

Creeks are grey with snow melt,
the forest floor wet with rain.
Spring clears the winter tangle,
brush and debris carried away
to rivers already full
and rushing to the sea.
I’ve gathered deadwood,
the wasted energy
that needs to pass.
Let me wash with rivers,
pristine once more
like a deep vaulted canyon.
Below what departs
only stone
and in that silence
I am whole.

The ceremony of spring
swells in winter darkness,
blades of grass
parting wet ground
on the altar of beginnings.
Incantation and incense
formed by the morning
and braided like smoke
lift into the four winds
as signal for the earth
to rise and awake.

Winter’s gift
returns to the valley,
rain soaked ground
drinking deep,
evergreens lifted
to gray skies.
Mountains gather
early snow, rivers
their wet season run.
With the sun far south
daylight is dim
yet under the soft hues
and blanket of rain
an embryo of new life
forms in earth’s darkness,
the gift of life reborn
cell by soaking cell
as the ancient wheel
slowly turns.