The stars sew the seeds
of rocks that hold
the seeds of ice crystals scattered
like seeds of rainbows that
carry rain seeds falling
into rivers where fish
swim and splash water seeds
onto flowers along the riverbank.
Amongst the flowers are hoofprints
of a white horse carrying
the Goddess Brigid
in a long silver dress
holding her staff high—
she has tied to it a string
of cool white sparkling
stars that stream
across the lilac-dawn sky.
Solidago
Oh goldenrod, turned brown, your burling
seedheads, stalks withered.
Yet you stand upright beside
this morning’s damp ledge-stone.
I carried cans of water to your feet
all through the hot, bone-dry summer.
You rocked in the searing breeze,
bending toward the sun even so.
I’ve admired your late-summer blooms,
where the bees rubbed their yellow-coated legs.
Yesterday some hopeful rain finally splashed
down and soaked into the dusty ground.
Are your roots reaching outward
to extend your footprint for next year’s glory?
I am the magnificent moon
a fertile daughter
on the barren surface
dark eyes pleading
lips full and round,
effulgent.
When I am full—
I speak.
Don’t you see it? Do you see?
Everything is precious.
Time now for
the fiercest protection
imaginable.
You gaze upwards . . .
my lips are moving
my eyes pleading.
You blink.
Shake
your head.
Wonder,
am I mad
under the moon?
No. The sacred
daughter of the moon
speaks to the summer
daughter standing barefoot
in damp grass having left
her shoes inside.
I am the magnificent moon daughter
circling the Great Mother, casting
light in the rounds of days.
Starlit and sparkling
floating
on black velvet.
My lips move.
Don’t you see it?
Look!
Daughters, we
are unbreakable.
Pregnant with possibility.
Fierce in our fullness.
I am endless rain,
drowning dew,
a green-spored parasol
in tea-black soil.
I am a puddle on the surface
of grey-rock ledge
the slippery sheen of slate stone.
I’m coal black, wet
tree trunks with their patches
of vibrant, soft moss.
I’m the bass notes of green frogs,
the whir of toad songs,
night bugs mating on
a screen door
in porch light.
Ping-pong balls
on a tin roof.
My city is gone.
I am soaking rain,
humidity my perfume,
curling hair frizz and
damp-showered skin.
I’m a shirt that sticks
to slick backs.
Insistent like a deep-
tongued kiss. Languid,
then lashing.
My city is gone.
I am a waterfall of rain,
a driving deluge, my
thunderous roar carving
new river banks and felling
shallow-footed tall white pines.
I keep midnight company,
create caverns out of concrete,
carry the refuse of humanity
from empty doorsteps.
I pour into their bottomless
secret places leaving
dark, murky, stinking pools.
My city is gone.
I am a warning rain—
I am tree-trunk tangles on
railroad trestles,
a deep crevasse where you
used to drive home.
I carry mountains to
the other side of roads,
twist bridges, spin cars
in river eddies.
I embrace the grit,
scour it clean.
I feed on warmth,
build higher and higher into
ever-thicker clouds
heavy, full, and ready
to utterly saturate earth’s
dry, thirsty deserts or
already-soaked spongy
woodlands.
I mist
sprinkle
pour
drum
pound.
I never mourn—
not cities, not roads, not homes . . .
mud to the ankles,
precious memorabilia,
delayed plans,
lost dreams.
July 10, 2023, Vermont
Rain drops drip, drip, splash, plummet earthward soaking into a rotten hollow log covered with lichen and mushrooms. The huge log is quietly decaying on the forest floor. No one notices. The carpenter ants have long since lost interest. Its hollows are too moist, now, for cozy dens for gray foxes or chipmunks. On its north side, a plush covering of luxurious green moss. It’s impossible not to reach out and run the palm of my hand over it, my fingers tickling the softest, greenest gift that nature has to offer me on this dark, rainy equinox morning.
Summer—
It just found me
old state forest
tall wise trees.
Dipped into
large tidal river running.
Still woods
silvery trunks so straight and smooth
leaves rattle and sigh.
Field of tall grasses
splashes of wildflowers
goldenrod
ragweed.
Merry painter
wearing summer cap.
We start to climb
a long hill but
now
places change.
Saw-teeth and tread roll
out the wide wheels
groaning and whining
branches break.
Where are we climbing to?
The other day I went into the staff room of the small college where I teach, and after I punched in the door code that lets faculty and staff in and keeps students out, I encountered a young staffer seated at one of the round lunch tables munching energetically on chips.
“How’s it going?” he asked loudly.
“Pretty good I guess,” I replied. I was lying. I was tired. I had a mountain of portfolios to grade in the upcoming week; each of them would take an hour. My checking account was overdrawn. I was currently working with my TMJ doctor to find the right mouth splint adjustment to relax my jaw joints enough while sleeping to keep me from biting my tongue off in the night.
“Me too!” he said, with seeming enthusiasm. “Pretty busy, which is good I guess.” He crunched another bunch of chips. “Makes the day go by fast,” he said, as I hustled into the bathroom to check my eye makeup and comb my hair. I was late to my learning center mentor shift.
“Agreed,” I called back from the bathroom door.
Inside the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and grimaced. Fluorescent lights always create a ghastly effect, making me look ten years older than I really am. A thought pounced on my mind.
“No you don’t,” the thought said.
What?
“You don’t agree. At all.”
My inner self was right. I didn’t prefer to be busy, or for my day to go by fast.
But, in my “congenial colleague persona,” I had just demonstrated how mindlessly our culture views busyness as a good thing. When did “busy” become the acceptable good? The desired state of being? The best and most successful modus operandi of our species? Sayings of busyness abound:
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” Walt Disney
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon
“Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy.” Jimmy Spithill
Productivity: produce, product, production, gross domestic national product (note the first word is “gross”)
Bottom line. ROI – return on investment
Get a move on. Daylight’s burning. For chrissake, hurry up. Get out of my way.
The early bird catches the worm.
The noise of busyness is ever present.
When I was a kid one of my favorite books was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. Ferdinand does not headbutt, kick, and run about and try to get in good with the other bulls. Nor does he share their aspirations to be selected to go and fight in the bullfights. He just wants to sit under his cork tree and smell the flowers. For this he is viewed as extremely odd. Speaking volumes about this little book, Hitler and Franco banned it, while Gandhi embraced it.
How could I explain to this guy at the lunch table that what I really wanted was to sit in an open field all day long like Ferdinand the bull and simply smell the flowers? My vision of a good day, of success, was slow and quiet. Just being.
I am not advocating a life devoid of purpose, contribution, and meaning. But I wonder how modern society’s current trajectory, which most days seems bent on mass destruction, might change if we just slowed down—the way we talk, walk, breathe, drive, think, and do. What if we sat and listened? What would we see if we just looked at what is really going on all around us? How would it change what we DO?
What are we really accomplishing with all of this busyness? Is it what is best for ourselves, our family and friends, for society, for the planet?
I try to carve out time for slowing down and observing. Interesting words we use – to carve … cutting and slicing as if time were meat on a plate, or a tree to be fashioned into a wood carving statue. Rather violent, this idea of carving time.
When I do slow down and observe, I am often appalled and astounded at some of the awful things we do and say to each other, what we do to fish, birds, plants, oceans, forests. It takes guts to listen and look.
But I am also inspired and hopeful, enlightened. Always I see the most beautiful moments of the natural world. Sometimes I see the tiniest acts of joy and kindness between fellow humans.
I take a long, deep breath. And the fresh air is a delight.
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