Midsummer Hunt

Humid air comes rolling in,
hair-curling moisture,
fine dew upon my face,
                 inhaling the scents of
another world
    a summer world
a world heavily pregnant
amidst dark forest floors.

I have walked this Way
      every year
hunting for the hooded one
                   the hidden one
his name unnamable
save by midsummer trees.

Humidity makes me drowsy,
mind on the ground
under a stupor of heat
panting, licking cracked lips,
even the Shade is heavy–

    

then a voice on the wind! 

     his his his ... the hunted one now hunting

   hunting hard for blood and bone

  hunter down upon me
 my skin to buckskin,

hand in hand, hoof in hoof,
                     penetrating from his darkness,
all knife stare and death kiss.

Humidity swelling,
I can hardly breathe
hardly move
for the weight of him
the weight of air
weight of the world

holding me here,
heaving doe
in mud and rotten leaves,

pressing down until
    clouds burst forth with rain

all that weight
      falling
                  piercing
                                 plummeting
to the earth,
sky       rent       apart,
by lightning’s blind arrow,

hearts heave, earth growls,

wind blows back the dark endless hood
and I am his

 heart his harvest,

 soul his own. 

  

 

Breathing Towards Birth

Wind,
strong wind,
tell me,

are you
my true nature? –

heart dispersing
like pollen
on the breeze

and every thought
a flutter,
leaves at evening

even my body
this earthen animal thing
bending
unbending
to the currents

as here

invisible
becomes
visible

swelling up,
lungs a balloon,
full bull frog throat,

I am swollen with spirit
and feel as though I might explode

and in the same

moment
of fullness,
tension,
expansion,

the exhale arrives,
emptiness,
space,
a void unfurled.

I am not …
yet I am.

I cannot express
the fullness
of this being-ness
this such-ness.

Impregnated
by presence,
I am a dandelion gone to seed,

each breath
a step
towards birth.

Wind,

strong wind,
tell me,

when my last breath
rejoins
you,

will I finally
be
born?

 
 

The Cure Lies in the Curse

I am Lot’s wife
having looked back
became a frozen stone,
a statue of salt,

but now
having stood all these years
with the rain and desert storms,
world dropping down
to the ground,
my rigid silence
dissolves into tears.

This has demanded time
and the sure-rhythmed seasons of life
to cast my eyes forward again,

knowing that 

release 

is the eventual way of all things.

  

  

 

Following Bouyancy

floating in the Eno on a hot day ... ahhh

Naked in the Eno,
    hot day,
sun beating sideways on
silver ripples,
pale green leaves,
turtles toasting their shells
while I toast my pale skin
beneath the yellow eye.

Tufted titmouse and chickadee calling,
the slightest breeze soft kissing
my vulnerability.

Skeeter bugs skate on the river surface,
purple violets and spring beauty blossoms
crowd the river's edge.

Oh–

“Follow your bliss,” the wise men say.
      My bliss is out here,
squidging toes into riverbed sand,
as a slow slow tide washes over my body,
                          only me
                    only me here
with the rest of the world,
                           the wild,
the world far from any well-marked track.

I sink back into the current
legs lifting, belly to the sky,
hair drinking in brown water,
grown heavy

floating
breeze and river

my soul a dogwood blossom
caught in the wind,
carried away by this hot sunny day
and the cool relief of giving in
to the riverway

the river’s way of
       drifting
             ebbing
rapids here and there
but rare,
               wide, deep course
finding the down-hill path
                            down …
                down …
down

following
perfection

mind gone buoyant
soft in the current
where-ever gravity leads.

 

Carolina Spring

dogwood and chinese wisteria along the Eno

Four years
since I saw a Carolina spring,

Four years
since I saw the dogwood in bridal white
next to the redbud tree or woodland drifts of
daffodils perfuming the air with honey while
wild wisteria hangs like Dionysian fruit,
intoxicating the senses, heaven-on-earth.

Four years
since I kissed the faces of field pansies,
fingers aroused by mouse tail buds and silky
river flags, lady’s slipper and pussy-toes,
tasting the tingly tang of winter-cress,
cherry birch and woodland sorrel.

Four years
since I walked through a Carolina spring,
everything so … green!
greener than all earthly memory,
wanting to spend every moment out in the woods
or meadows along the Eno, or on Occoneechee Mountain,
staring as pine trees turn the world yellow with pollen.

Four years
since I heard the cadence of tree frogs
and birds gone mad with springtime–
robins vying for love,
eastern blue bird warbling out his relief that winter is past
as the Carolina chickadee cries in fast succession
“chick-a-dee-dee-dee!”
nuthatches stealing old woodpecker holes for homes
while blue-black grackles and crows argue for limb space.

This is the season for sparrow song and goldfinch,
tufted titmouse, red bird, and the meadowlark’s
“Spring-is-here! Spring-is-here!”
Oh there are birds, more birds than I could name,
birds in search of nests and safe havens,
who know their voice in the greater song of things.

My heart is like the sweet spring birds,
opening forth into full-throated rapture,
mind abandoning winter’s house,
gone feral, naked in the sunshine,
lapping up penumbral rain until
I am drunk, soul splayed out like
apple blossoms before the bee.

Four years,
and I’ve awoken as
Carolina spring.