I am the Earth

I am the Earth
and the fall of nations,
the rising and the risen
and the fires that never cease

I am the ruined shores
and the plastic island of your making
that threatens the sparkle of a thousand suns
tossed across the sea

I am the Great Auk and the leopard
dying in the snow, the macro and micro,
the killer and the killed
and the harpooner of old Nantucket

I am the bloom of every flower,
the fall of every leaf
and the child in the photograph
nearly dead and the vulture you cannot see

I am the pain you all feel,
the power that you stole in the night
and the fatal hour that you will
for your sons and daughters

I am the melting ice 
and the long strides
of the green incarnations
who feed their brothers first

I am the last breath of the white bear
and the change that rests inside you

I am the Earth

Snow

Snow,
falling
falling
makes no sound
under the streetlight

It smothers
for but an instant,
an impression that passes,
a mute barrage
and the world brightens

The maples thickening
along the stark branches,
illumined and pleased
I am sure, by this visitation
from heaven

I wonder if it will ever stop,
the fences grow taller
and the yards gathering
the soft blessings,
the safe and magical place
that children know

I would like to go out in it,
stand beside a cedar,
become one,
disappear
and gather in the sparrows

In the morning,
such a pristine awakening,
all is glistening and the blue sky
as infinite as love

If all this is real -
how could they drag
a woman through the hard streets?

Light

it is what we all long for,
triumphs over darkness - in the end

we trust that it will greet the day,
the shadows will be redeemed

the colours are inside us,
prisms shaped like a heart

how could we see light as it is,
when we weep for rainbows?

Death in a Wilderness

somewhere in the dark forest
hares gather in the dry wells
and lynx smell their fear
that is surrender,
all this with the stars cold
against the blue-black night

i've stood alone and listened
to the heart beats of life,
understood that i could die
at any moment, all would
be lost and the pines still
soughing like sadness

i would be gone and the voles
would tunnel their singular madness
under the new snow
and the great gray owls would
be patient without me, soundless
as they dive into space

and these things
are a comfort to me, to know that
wilderness is a place i can touch,
that grounds me, inspires me
to protect the One Life
that breathes in us all

there is a home where
my bones can mend, a place
that holds me with gentle hands,
warm and loving where the free
can sit a while and be safe
and wonder about this unity

out in the street today
i saw him gaunt against a bitter wind,
he has no home, he is faceless,
unknown to the cars rushing by,
a man who keeps moving
ahead of his own death

Coyotes

the moon is dust on the hills,
a bath of pale skin

there is howling along the ridges,
coyotes frozen to their breaths,

melodies drifting north
over the sleeping mute

i'm no fool, i hear them
in my sleep before they can

press their yellow eyes
against my window

they are in the yard tonight,
filling the shadows with wilderness

The Children Watch

I feel the collective ache
where the Earth gave birth to us all

A wound that wants us back
to douse the fires of Alexandria

Why did we unlearn
all the things we once knew?

And now we are remembering,
one by one, so it might take a while

Take heed as time runs out
on the oppressor - it's his most dangerous hour

To kill a million things is no great feat
before the children who are watching