WIND
A breath blew up from the basin
through the golden grass
and past the ridge.
It buffeted you.
Teased and taunted you.
It did this every time
you walked this stretch of trail.
Without fail.
And each time this tussle took you
you felt elemental,
not separate, but a part
of the living landscape.
The wind saw you,
knew you, inhaled you.
Take that breath away
and the ridge becomes neglect
and all seeing ceases,
and the stillness is a suffering
that is human.
AS IT DID, SO DID WE
Beneath trees that towered over us
we walked through the moonlit park
on a narrow stretch of pavement
that gave way to dirt and meaty earth,
that gave way to a carpet of leaves.
And as it did
our shadows, like the path,
changed also.
A question moved between us:
Are we becoming trees?
AVALANCHE
More like
an avalanche
than a mountain.
More like denial
than addiction.
A blindness
bigger than
anything
unseen.
Yet anything
worth having
or inhabiting,
like humility,
requires empathy
over anger,
love over
arrogance.
Mountains
are avalanches
waiting to happen.
So are we.
So why not
make compassion
our igneous inside,
the matter
we carry within
our living lives.
Then when collapse
happens, we collapse
into kindness.
AMBIGUITY
hangs, in the heat of the night,
from an avocado tree, happy in her
hammock. I try to make sense out of
what she’s saying, but can’t. She’s throwing
me questions like knots I can’t answer,
can’t untangle fast enough. And because
I can’t her smile broadens. Broadens
until she disappears entirely, and all I can
see is the swooping arc of a dalliance in
the balance, swinging and swaying, among
the thick branches splayed against
the theater of night.
