Snow Snow Snow

My mind is full of snow.

Air turns soft with feathered light–
ten thousand stars falling to earth,
a nest of dreams in winter down,

nothing but stillness
and heart hushed with wonder.

Hunger

Full moon

deer crunch frost-bitten grass
white tails, short beards quiver in the cold
ears alert, noses hoaried by first snow
crystallized breath, falling, falling
into tree shadows long against a blue white earth

nothing but silence
                   and ice-jawed winter,
gnawing from inside out. 

   

  
  
  

Heart

Little wild song bird,
love is not a cage
but a nest
to which you return
day after day.

Tattoo

Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images

  

  

Your touch
is like pen to paper
indelible on my skin,
a language of belonging
pressed deep into cells
and soul,
tattoo
forever marking me
as loved.

Appalachian Native

Into the Appalachian wilderness,
no rules but the rule of the wild,
no god but the god of presence.

My nest is amidst dead leaves
where-ever I stop for sleep,
wandering all day to feed on nuts,
bitter fruit and sweet mountain waters.

Shedding my shell,
shedding the shackles of all I thought I knew,

here the human creature
sinks back into the soil,
merging into bark texture,
mushroom, green leaf and bird.

Plans rot down,
expectations wear away like riverbanks,
while a mountain of thoughts
      transform
           into trees.
 
 
 

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?