Sacred Born
Daylight changes as winter dissolves into spring, trees shedding their ice in the warm air. I stir in my cave, having digested the dreams and phantom shadows, hungry now for color. It is the world I rise to and the green lens I look through to know my place on the endless shore. Beauty signals […]
Night Basket
The soft colors of budding trees, deep greens of fir and cedar, the startled look of squirrel, the steady gaze of crow, the sound of breaching whales and high pitched cries of eagle, human faces vast in number, the star reach broad and clear. On and on the roll call of creation, ten thousand times […]
Tir Na Nog
Paudriag spoke to me though from afar his voice both close and quiet, reminding me of the green sloping land and north the sea, shining and alive with ancient music. There is a place for him and many gone before who traveled to America where they’d never rest, returned now to Tir Na Nog, forever […]
Perhaps Today
Perhaps today the heartland will rise, prairies sing their ancient songs as broad lakes join flowing rivers unceasing to the sea. Though the noise of progress may demand attention, beneath disturbance are the clear tones of earth, quiet as a dirt road, fields green with spring. Perhaps we may forget or set aside the thoughts […]
Plum Tree Blossoms
There’s light upon the Colorado mountains, shining on the Wasatch and Sawtooth, over the Canyonlands and Great Basin to the deserts of Nevada and California. From the high chaparral of eastern Oregon pouring down the sentinel peaks through the gorge of the Snake and Columbia where the green swath of the Willamette leads to the […]
Washboard Road
This rutted track with pot holes and cuts, makes for rough travel. Perhaps I should have chosen a shorter course, taken the highway. Out on this spur of lonely landscape with wire fence and barren fields, two coyotes lope from cover, a raptor watches. Bouncing on the gravel I wonder at my choices, of wayward […]
Keeping Faith
Low clouds cross the valley in a dry southerly wind, the sun an occasional guest during months of rain feeding glaciers, mountain rivers, vast estuaries rimming the coastline. We depend on what we suffer, aspiring to heaven as we slog through puddles, our heads hooded against the sky. Bending with the wind we find suppleness, […]
Country Roads
When I think of America, the US that is, I think of John Denver and Country Roads. And just to show how out of touch I am when I think of that song I am warmed. I know about Vietnam and that gash of a wall, the hollowing of our midlands and desolate homeless camps, […]
Grace to Her Becoming
Beneath the weight of snow the Earth rests but does not sleep. In root and caves beyond number tribes of spring begin to drum, waters destined for rivers flow, and in the depths of her abundance the burgeoning of new life. Layer after layer the white blanket covers Earth’s repose, winter peace the grace to […]
Winter Well
South the sun rises on winter mornings, slanted low in bright light and pale orange. Trees sleep in rooted beds, the sky left to crows. Putting down the cup of fear I turn to the well within. When the door is closed, the window shut, a path opens through dark earth, below the tangle of […]
Spirit Talons
Cold comes the morning with light rain and gentle breeze. Strong winds have laid down but will rise again, the ocean stirred by the growing pulse of winter. My animal body layers on clothes, circles the earth bed to rest in darkness while I stay above, spirit talons grabbing the high fir for a view […]
Time to Live
Smoke rises from a chimney into the cold December sky. Desire, too, lifts above the earth like a towering evergreen, but the land calls from below: discover yourself wrapped in elk hide, stone-faced and sober. Stir the cauldron, sing the ancient songs, let the drumbeat of mother’s heart guide you in knowing wild horse and […]
Sisters of Peace
The need to fight, to oppose, is older than red rock hills rising from the desert landscape. Springs of violence swell from a righteous vein to spread upon the dry ground soaking evening’s quiet. A crescent moon softens, the dipper points to north star but trouble’s impulse continues. Across the stony ground and abroad the […]
Within the Womb
Hidden now the green life and pulsing energy. Gone to root the life of trees, as bears sleep in burrowed caves. Single bird song breaks the quiet, calling out her joy to the cold gray sky. Where I go a greater light within the darkness, the treasure of winter’s rest curing my impatience, as beauty […]
World Anew
A flight of crows silhouette the morning. Red skies to the east speak of coming rain though the air above is clear and blue as cold snaps the power lines. The old earth claws for purchase yet the turning reaches to the roots of trees, a new heaven poised over the horizon, beginning even now […]