Tag Archives: nature

130. Night owl

Because one owl’s soft hoot eases out from the wood,

leaves pause their evening flutter.

The last finch tucks down against a branch.

The only thing moving is that moon, slowly,

slowly rising through velvety dusk.

Now we are all suspended together 

just above the ground of a world’s constant motion,

suspended together in a holy 

state of waiting, 

waiting together, breath

shallow and slowed for absolute silence, 

absolute hope.

 

The faintest reply eventually

drifts in over treetops,

silver light smooth as stone and

no more than the smallest rustle

passed in dying undergrowth,

 

and with the one answering owl’s soft call, 

night is released from its patient

pause, from such

absolute stillness, 

such peculiar hope.

126. A Living Wind

For three weeks wind blew

trailers off their trucks

and arms off windmills

spun too fast for harvest mechanics.

 

For three weeks a town

drew lots for madness,

crossing fingers behind backs

individually, holding a bland face

to calm the rattling windows 

of their souls. 

 

Until snow fell, 

only wine was consumed

in low light, no whiskey.

 

Until snow fell, 

banishing wind,

half the breath of town

was saved for prayer.

Let it be not my son, 

my sister to answer 

wind’s harassment

with a bullet

this time.

 

And this time

everyone drew

blank cards,

drew curtains closed

and kept the lid on the fragile 

trailer of a town. No one wonders 

why women on prairies seventy 

years ago heard voices, saw

visions, shattered

sanity, they wonder

 

why everyone didn’t.

123. Caged

Behind the grey chain 

link fence, a coyote who has worn out 

the grass all over. When I stop to look 

he trots to a worn adobe shell

staring sideways,

            hating me.  

I let my hands hang, claw fingers stuck 

to the sun-hot links, let

my 

            hate 

flay a world that would catch

a coyote, weave wire around and

give him nothing but a shell

of white-washed mud

to contain his fear

            and shelter his hate.

 

The force of his eyes blew holes in the adobe.

In the dark his brothers sing wild hymns.

 

They say he was injured, that 

            this

is how they saved him,

death assumed to be less

than any life.

It can’t be true.

116. Glad to be Within

All the hands, white on canyon walls, clap at dawn.

Something like the night-life of stuffed animals.

All the sand particles jump once, rattling together at full moon’s first light.

 

All day the white hands and the white sands are loose

with barely contained mirth.  

Rock joins in at night’s commencement, and water.  

Each plant shifts, snorts its amusement.  

Stone-animal outlines dip and grin, walking-around-animals pause to smile,

trying not to.

 

All the world is moving, moving, living.

 

All the world is glad to be within.

108. Night Owl

 

One owl’s soft hoot eases out from the wood, and

leaves pause their evening flutter.

the last finch tucks down against a branch.

the only thing moving is that moon, slowly

slowly rising through velvety dusk.

Now we are all suspended together 

just above the ground of a world’s constant motion,

we are all suspended together in a holy 

state of waiting, 

waiting together, breath

shallow and slowed for absolute silence, 

absolute hope …

 

The faintest reply drifts in over treetops.

silver light smooth as stone and

no more than the smallest rustle

passed in dying undergrowth.

 

In one answering owl’s soft voice, 

night is released from its patient

pause, from such

absolute stillness, 

such hope.

84. land

.

my beloved land,

grass thick as beaver

pelt, light rolling across it,

licking the sky … 

.

oh

yes, clouds the very

breath of space and earth 

muttering east, rubbing against blue

so blue my bones ache … 

.

oh 

my beloved land.  

bury my now terrified 

heart. when this war is gone

drink down this blood.

.

how will we each live with each

other then, 

ashamed?

.

70. Talking Rock to Feet

Coyote skitters between

sagebrush and bright blooming rabbitbrush,

rides beside cracked playa beds

where clay sleeps.

Coyote’s paws are talking,

talking as he walks

right on top of desert floors.

Rabbits huddle close

to themselves, stars of earth surface,

dry land between cacti shifts

while coyote

passes.

.

Map tracks turn

and gather,

leaving little whispers.

I went this way.

I went there.

.

Dusk is watching,

shredding light with early stars,

following coyote west.

.