Vine Maple

Kevin Schafer/Photodisc/Getty Images

You found me in your forest
Near the foot of a full grown fir
I noticed your flock of leaves
Delicate and perfect and proud
Each choosing its own green
Shimmering silently
In the filtered light of the forest
Tremouring truthfully
In the delicate breeze of my breath

I am called to notice you again
Your leaves so bright in this light
Attached to the dark woody thread
Of your forest stems
Lifting them above the rich littered earth
And offering them to the highest of heavens

Seven lobes on each perfect leaf
Health, happiness, generations, generosity
Humbleness, forgiveness and understanding
Steps that were walked by ancestors
Thousands of years ago
And just as the salmon return
To greet this land and to find their purpose
These leaves returned
To lift their stems heavenward

Movement

I looked up at the sky
I don’t know why
Close to the middle was a triangle
A gull, a plane and the moon
They seemed still in that instant
But my eyes lingered
And the triangle changed shape
All three were moving
Different heights
Different speeds
Different directions
Each with a destination
Each with a presence
Connected not dependent
Then I looked at my own feet
I was moving too
Then I realized that the earth
Was on its own mission of movement
Spinning and speeding and wobbling
I became dizzy just thinking about it
And I probably never even penetrated
the surface of change
That is our close companion here
So what is it really that seems still

The Crow

It is one short block
From the hot dry dust
In the corners of my garden
To the cool and windy
Presence of the sea

In yesterday's summer wind
Everything was moving
Everything was growing
The sounds of the world
Hid the stream I usually hear
From the rock I often sit on

Across from me a tree
On the far point
Small in size
But so fully
Of this place
Happy in this wind
Above its breaking waves
Alone on its rocky ocean point
The tree seemed still on the outside
But so alive on the inside
With ocean music
Never lonely
In its love

The stream
I listened for
Seemed silent
So I looked around
To see a crow standing on the ground
Just ahead of me and in gentle conversation
With a child that came to this beach
With her family
Their purpose of a picnic lost
With the sandwiches all gone

There plays my reason
For being here
A crow and a little girl
Both reaching beyond the sun's light
Past the tree's rough bark
And me knowing life's seed
Was planted in their sharing

Waking

Lying there
Listening to the body
Try to explain
The dashed dreams
Of a soul
Silenced by years
Of solitary patience
Deafened by thousands
Of tread upon shells

Draw back the curtain
Let the metal rings clink
Let the wooden rings clack
Let the fabric swish
And stand aside for the sun
To shine through
Let its light touch reach
Through your broken body
And heal your heart
Then mend your body
Together with your soul

Lift the veil
Of false perception
Hear what is there
See what is there
And dance with it
Forget the menu
And sit down to the feast