Mid Winter

Within this earth heart
Seeds.
It is time to be born.
This garden of mine,
Paints herself in grey and brown winter days.
In starlight, water pours over icy ground
Only faith remains free flowing.
The seeds turn
Knowing roots always go down into darkness.
How could that light appear over the eastern ridge without
The faith of roots?
The garden has grown beyond the fences.
It will not be tamed by the faithless.
The rich taste of spring can only be found
By those pouring water in the icy darkness,
Naked and alone
With roots going down
Together.

I sit here this winter morning remembering the dreams of my youth
How they did flutter
So alluring in their fiery promise
How they did unfold like a tree
Every season a mark
Every agony a new turn
The bright sunlight of birds
Captured in shapely branches
The wind has removed many
Drought has taken its toll
A twisted trunk and eroding soil
Reveal roots where they enter the sweet earth

Looking for the light that lives within darkness,
Shattered bits of earth,
A swirl of broken pottery standing like sentries
in the winter garden.
Clay slowly returning to earth
Such beauty in that
That dying,
That emptying.

My mother’s face
Deeply etched,
Disappears.
My father’s chin cracked
Open,
The spirit so quiet.

The tall mullein now lies empty,
Decaying beside the young sprout.
This young one seems to be waiting
Again that great quiet,
That lull
Before the brink
Of Spring.

Oh, to die so well,
That all that is left
Sings

But what of my passion?
Where is the longing fulfilled?
In one swift stroke of the brush?
Or in that final sigh?

When dreams die
I will eat from the green shoots that grow from underneath the bones.

Hope

To enter into hope amidst buffeting winds
and the hollow sounds of your footsteps as you cross the floor,
The floor that you drempt, and chose and laid yourself.

Now see the shifting clouds as your heart
the mountains that rise as your body.
How can this soft green grass not die to winter?
Birds flitting above the snow
Eating the cold lonely seeds that fall
as they land upon the slender stalks of some ancient grain.
Some of those seeds escape the darting beaks
burrowing into the snow
waiting for the warmth of the sun to turn them into green grass
Is that not Hope herself,
Dancing in the shadows cast by a winter sun?

Dawn

Birdsong
Weaves the body back from sleep
First one cheep,
Than another,
Chirping.
In the distance crow calls.
Mourning dove coos
As owl sings goodbye.
Goodbye to night and starlight,
To Moon and shadow.
Goodbye to the silent swirling down
And the talk of dreams.
Rosy mountain peaks
Saturated in sunlight
Welcome day
As birdsong sweeps the desert floor.

emnorth

In the dry creekbed
Doves coo
The word home written in sand.
What is the word?
Dancing letters so ancient
That the dna of language
Forms and reforms the basis of consciousness again and again.
Can it shift?

In the beginning was the Word
Frozen in time
Hell fire
My fear
Does this fire
Melt those golden dna dancers
Or cook them down to ashes?

I paint my face with the ashes of my old life
I walk the narrow streets at dawn
Lifting my face to the clouds that form,
pray for rain
This dry creekbed is waiting.

Open the valve with my heart
Pumping
Black and red
Sweet water
And a festival of green
Shall dance through the dry dusty fields.


emnorth

EVE

Walk this earth with pride
You are the Garden
And I am a seed.
We have stolen something from God,
You, an apple,
Me, a rib,
A story too old to stand
wobbling
You took the bite heard round the world,
I burnt that rib in the fire of transformable suffering and brittle beliefs.
The leaves of the apple tree
Red and brown.
mostly fallen.
The new growth of spring
Clearly visible to those who can see.

May your voice sing in every sulpture I steal from the rhelms beyond my ability to speak
May every heart desire terrible love.
Here is the wound that makes me create in our name.
the defination of woman,
handed down to me like snakes on a platter covered in chocolate,
Takes final breath
Dying
Beautiful
Death.

I name you Goddess
I name you Life and Death
I name you Mother
I name you friend

Unname me!

The ashes covering our faces have just been removed by the Wind,
Sophia
Wisdom
The Mother of the Mother of the Mother
Breathes.

emnorth

Poets heart

Somewhere, beneath the soft curves of soul,
Under the brittle broken branches,
Are eyes that feel what they see.
They have known the suffering and the rising.
They have birthed the great compassion and the great lonliness.
They have danced in raging wind, whipping the sword of the great jealousy.
Even God has been there.
It is from here that the poet breathes his words into my mouth.
It is from here that the embrace exists.
The poet is the witness that never waivers,
The heart friend that burns with soothing fire.

emnorth