Rain
That rain moves down, down down
expresses the core of its essence
as much as its wetness does.
The same water that soaks the roots of everything,
causing the upward flourishing of all life
Is also what brings the elder oaks
in the woodland where we live
back down to Earth again.
These hills are glorified
by the bodies of these trees
prostrate,
poignant,
with an unnamable depth of meaning
that is felt from a distance
and sweetly magnified
as I approach each unique individual
resting in enduring poetry.
The trail wraps around the hillside,
At the peak of ephemeral green…
Upslope, we see an oak still very much alive
Standing in its ancient outspread generosity,
Offering itself to a family of acorn woodpeckers
That may have called it home
Over generations of robust black, white and red existence
And loud prehistoric trilling for sunshine, for hunger
For danger, for joy -
for hundreds of years..
Below the canopy
I am irresistibily drawn
to a cluster of enormous limbs
The arc of these branches -
Once married to blue sky and scrub jay
Now kissing the wet ground
Nostalgic for the soil,
Surrendered in harmony with the virtuous rain
Still moving down, down, down
To the dark place of pure origin
Their posture, their perpetual curves
Reclined and noble
At the peak of raw sensual truth
And harboring even more life
In their safe, nurturing shadows
showing us that beginnings and endings
always come together
are one.
Pain and pleasure,
Wonder and anguish
Can be so simultaneously felt
In this human life..
When my skeleton aches,
When my heart meets fear,
I look to the bones of these oaks
And find a calm..
An Inspiration,
A dedication
to embody such abundant grace
To offer such slow, consistent mothering
To impart a quiet but potent legacy of love
And so much beauty
In my own long return.