Nature inspires me in ways I keep discovering. Unearthing. These are some thoughts about my relationship with nature and how we, humans, have seasons and tides of our own. It is also about the profound effect it has on us and its strong influence on our senses and spirit.
—
The Quiet of A Waterfall
There’s a rushing in my head,
As loud as a waterfall
Numbing to the senses.
Not intrusive enough to notice
But enough to keep me from focus
Key down the subtle pushes and whispers meant to guide
By something in my brain that refuses to let me be a part of the river.
We all are afraid at times to reach out and inward
And scoop up the celestial clues that help us move in one way or another
To leap in the midst of chaos,
Step out behind the barrier
And find something to cling to
Something that changes us as much as that which moves us.
But the roaring never stops or slows,
Leaving me stranded with nothing to grab onto.
And why should it slow for me?
The wild ways of civility
As strange as magic unblooded
Love undone
Swirling in my ears and eyes and chest
No light in a storm,
No handhold in the dark
Just kicking and trying not to panic.
—
Traveler
I am a traveler between worlds
A pioneer of that already known by others
But I must discover them myself
I have much to learn and much to see
I almost didn’t notice my travel,
From one subtle change to the next
My words forming around new ideas that had previously been fantasy
Or myth
We all travel in one form or another
Whether we mean to or not
Through film and fiction
Shared pain and sadness
Our own changing truths.
What it could be
To hear all words,
All stories
All pain
All worlds
All at once in the briefest instant of time.
—
Night Trance
I wonder
What it is that makes me so uneasy
When I lay awake in bed
My mind reaching for sleep
My body twitching because my heart won’t stop racing.
If I cannot take out that feeling
Like a hand to a puppet,
Do my dreams belong to it too?
—
Forgotten
Something shimmers around the corners of my mind.
I turn to look
And it moves again
What gave me this feeling?
There’s something I meant to do
Need to do
Urgently
But every time I try to identify it, it flutters out of sight
A skittish creature that knows me,
And maybe I know it too
But my memory is eclipsed.
I will forever be wandering in the dark,
Looking over my shoulder for its glimmer.
—
Desert Night
Inside a twinkling globe
The air drops with the sun
Spreading chill across parched earth
The sand a rumpled bedsheet
Mountains at the head
A stage of graceful, quiet creatures make their entrance.
The stalking coyote. The swift rattler. The proud roadrunner. The stealth lizard. The quick jackrabbit.
I, too, am a creature of the desert.
My lips dry and eyes wary
I slip through the desert in the living night
Knowing that those who live this harsh life are the most alive.
—
Normal Was Always Here
Dust settles
Like in the bottom of a tank
Still wobbling in suspense above the ground
The reluctant return to whatever we humans think is normal
But it doesn’t have to settle to move on
I, myself, a natural state of flux.
—
The Snowpocalypse
My breath saturates in the frozen air
It is wild how the drop in temperature changed my home into a foreign terrain.
The biting water and dead stove.
The refrigerator seems warmer inside than out.
Now I move with the weight of five layers, maybe more,
I lost count.
But it’s not enough for me to feel fine.
We try to heat soup over burning candles
Drink wine to feel warm for a bit
We weren’t cut out for the apocalypse rolling over our heads.
—
Disruption
A shooting star across a desert highway
A rising thunder, momentary, before, again,
Quiet
Safe to resume their nocturnal routines.
—
What a Wind
The highs and lows of whatever gale finds my path
How I change when I feel strong and high
Above the crowds and ocean
Than when I scrounge for crumbs along the ground, too weak to catch a breeze.
I wouldn’t lie to say it’s all for the best or that I am only learning to be a stronger version of myself
When I crave the other self that I will return to should the opportunity come
The one that sees things a bit differently
From up above.
—
A New Unknown
Who are you after the journey
The scorching uncertainty of having the world
Shift under your feet
The way you feel taller, but might crumble
And fall into the depths
Does the body change the mind
Does the forge make the sword
Any more than the strike of iron?
—
Of the Earth
The sound of trickling water washes over my mind like a warm blanket
A cocoon
The rustle of leaves
The crunch of a dirt path
The smell of dewy grass on a cool morning
The strike of lightning that shakes the earth.
How my sleeping self longs for its feral roots.
—
Nightsong
We are attracted to night not because we are alert
a night owl
but because
it is the slowing of time
The world quiets
…
and stops watching the minutes.
Time stretches and melts
…
into whatever form we wish it
Etched demands of the daylight disappear
…
in its forgiving shadow.
And we crawl out of ourselves and praise the wild freedom
…
…
Of an open calendar.