Black branches rising
Naked arms against white Sky
Inner sap forms dreams
Ash goddess sheds leaves
Yellow blanket sheathes ground
Strong roots grow under
Black Crow hops on grass
Cedar sways in winter borne wind
Earth Mother dreams Child
is gone. Leaves turn from green
to gold, the reddest scarlet, and mauve.
They dance their final fiery
love song before the fall.
My heart, this year preoccupied
by illness and death, almost didn’t notice
all the beauty.
Yet on a pensive walk
it received a tugging jolt.
My eyes, who could not resist,
as Imminent curiosity is
their game
beckon the compassionate
one to attention.
My heart is a sunflower.
I open to the light.
I take it in, turning to face my gift.
I stare at it in the face,
bouncing like a puppy
with sloppy big feet.
I breathe in and out.
I focus on the good,
leaving what doesn’t serve behind.
I watch. It goes through me
Like a wave. Colors changing
like the season. Some call it energy.
Breath. Life. Sunshine.
The golden thread of the victorious.
I know I am made in tiny bits
of all those things.
I see my shadow behind me
I salute it. (Although secretly sometimes
I’d rather it went away.)
I bend in the wind swaying.
Thankful I have roots.
My mind alights and soars.
I bring it back in
like a kite to center.
I hold it most lovingly.
I tell that little voice to shush.
Knowing it won’t be the last cry.
I want to hear the deep voice beyond.
It is the wind playing in the grasses.
The waves washing on the shore
The thunder beating in the skies.
It is the opening of a flower
The gaze of a child,
unquestioning, always there,
always changing.
It is time to go.
I fold myself into the night.
Bobbing to the pulse of the great beyond.
oona's looking glass 