Let pungent winds enfold me, lift me to a hiding moon.
May birds whisper sweetness, cougars lie with paws close,
deer stir inside pearled twilight, eyes bright as honey.
Put me on a saved trail, into satin cloak of dark.
Let the sky find me, Cassiopeia and Cygnus, loyal Venus.
May waters ruffle and mirror, fish tip into blue hush of sleep,
river otters float among dancing grass, muddy stones.
This useless poem is trying to find itself,
is an urgent dream
as demon fires kidnap, possess
flailing branches, a tapestry of roots;
to punish the life-giving dirt;
smother forsaken ones, their dwellings of love.
How does one sleep in a night like this?
How does one rest when I cannot
step outdoors to take in a breath,
am not to trod the trails first
shaped by God’s mastery, of holy
regard for all? Days and nights
are sleepwalkers, are at the mercy of raging
otherness that covets the beauty.
Nothing but ash and tears track the stinging hours,
the birds silenced, the cougar screaming softly,
the deer racing and wandering lost, the fish–
the fish who float somewhere, waiting,
small sleek bodies shimmering
in garish light of ambush,
this curse of wildling fires.
My heart pounds the heavy drum of me
as forests fall, let go, are defeated, gone.
Please, put me outdoors into the mourning night;
grant me one prayer for gifts of the emerald life–
for healings to lift up all creatures once more,
to allow more worship in the arching realms of leaves,
under maps of a trillion stars, light messengers of hope.
Soon release us of this beast’s dominion
and teach us to become wise, how to live in these times
o God o God o God amen
(Close to a million acres have burned in Oregon in unprecedented firestorms. They burn near me. We wait for containment, for victory over them, and a long recovery.)
To move, be moved by whim or design,
lilting, dipping on breezes, an invisible kite
shimmying, weightless in suspension,
a take off that is meant to fast ascend
like a creature of air, earthly or otherwise.
Any flight, any wings, lifting til gone.
I once so yearned for it, true freedom.
Plotting release from gravity,
shedding this tinsel thin flesh,
taking on feathers or silver scales,
then starting that vertical trip through
gale, fire or ice, into brave mercurial space.
Farthest away from this place of blood,
pain a clinging cape, and more
betrayals slinking by, misshapen things.
Yet my spirit found no passage for a final portal;
strength grew in place of bitter longings.
Where would wings have taken me safely?
What power would have redeemed all
unforgiven and unforgiving
and fill the cave of my heart?
Not one thing that is temporal.
Only deeper springs at bottom of the well.
I am older, know how to remember the good.
To take a bountiful day, all the Giver gives.
I was made futile by my youth but
live on, corralled by autumn’s
offerings: leaves innocent and vivid
while giving their last on earth;
this painterly stalk and branch
separating an afternoon sky;
happy howl and bark of dog; cluck of hen;
jazzy skitter of cat paws and tail;
bombast of notations from the crows.
Trees sing easy to one another and me
as I pass with a limp and nod.
My hope throbbing, a wild drum in my chest-
glory of joy careening in maze of veins:
bless and take every, any, all
this life this life this life
An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson