Already Too Late

... Not content with extinguishing birds,
man takes arm against his own kind--
"-- he who cannot bring one green leaf into being,"
an offended goddess said.  "Somehow or other
mankind must be got rid of.
Since he has destroyed all other predators
I can do no more than let him
prey on himself till the last bone is stripped clean.
The weapons he has invented must destroy him.
Out of each violated atom he himself shall let loose
the fire of his own annihilation:

"After the fire, the darkness:
aeons of cold darkness.

"Perhaps then," said the goddess,
"I will once more smile upon the blind earth
and draw with the touch of my own skilled finger
a green cell out of the sea.
The green cell will start spinning the world again
from sunlight and long-unwakened water.
"In time there will be music
from the throats of birds and of angelic creatures
I have not yet begun to dream."

~ Peggy Pond Church

Wanderin' Stranger

This Great Unknowing

ah

now don't i feel just like

those bare trees bending

in the windy winter

rains

what a tangle i have gathered!

like the half-moon after midnight

i've gone beyond the horizon

toward a darkness that subsumes all senses;

unpierceable perfect dark

but in darknesses are mysteries

that i go wandering for

that i go seeking nets

to ravel in, in hopes

that from this tower

when i cry toward the stars

the sound 

will stir that Woman at her loom

and she will weave for me a blanket,

with the patience of the earth,

the color of my questioning

the stitching of which

i'll read in dream

and wake in light

not fit for eyes

that haven't known

the awe of action

acted in unknowing.

The Murmuring Desert

the azure berry
suddenly in morning
falls from clumped up needles
"find a bed, wait for water"

the house finch's
dip and rise, flutter
dip and rise
"my home too!"

snowfall in the distance
a ladder from the sky
obscuring unfamiliar sun
"guess your future"

dunes of sand will never stay still
the wind never chooses a direction
snow here is an exhale from the rainforest
"we move in hinging spirals, not circles"

song of the desert:
a dry patience whispering

One Glory Without Significance

The sun was gone under the wine-colored ocean,

      then the deep west fountained

unanticipated magnificences of soaring rose and heavy purple,

      atmospheres of flame-shot

color played like a mountain surf, over the abrupt coast,

      up the austere hills,

on the women talking, on the men's bent forms filling the grave,

      on the oak, on the eagle's prison, one glory

without significance pervaded the world.

Cawdor, Robinson Jeffers

The Veil

what sun do I dream of?
it blazes here, but it is brighter
or clearer always where I think
it will shine next

each day I give the wind my breath
but time is its lone rider

again this year, I will miss
the anchored blossom of flowers;
unable to map the rain
my magic is homeless
and I fear I'll never stop
until a voice indistinguishable
beckons me to rest

wild or blind?
at least I've found a peace
in the sound of my footsteps alone

yet, my hands are getting soft
so that at night, when I am lost in loves strange colors
and I feel the gaze of unknown eyes
I worry whether I am recognizable

Piñon Wind

/

days of cold + light

hunched, withdrawn land

on the new moon

a woman 

let it down

what wonder is this?

a brimming urgency of being

a call to lightfoot ways

just how could i refrain?

two voices singing

and i to return the song

i am always returning

/