Singing with the Spirits

One tree is special. One tree’s roots run deeper and branches reach higher than any other. Fire does not work beneath this tree.

In the open, forest animals gather as we toast the sparks in the darkening sky, as we sing to the smoke and call to the spirits with dancing.

The old owl is out. The tall grass sways. A mole insists on tickling my ankle. The wolf king is pleased to meet your big cats. The fireflies are kissing your face as if they just met you. 

The moon, resting in the high branches, has even joined us.

I know you don’t like big parties, but I just couldn’t help inviting all my friends. I haven’t seen them in so long. Tonight is a celebration of life, and of returning to life now that you are in mine.

Beyond the Shoreline Branches

Within my forest the light rain whispers, the moss covers the ground and the leaves swing in the breeze like bells.

I am the deepest part of the woods, with ancient trees that rival mountains, their high branches thick as redwoods.

One path leads here. Our ancestors ferried from one shore to another within me to secure safe passage.

Perhaps I am the king of the forest. Or maybe I’m just a boy who couldn’t find his way out. Either way, I built the hidden stairs and the first city in the trees.

When a spell was cast on me, I lived as a refugee in my own land, searching but never finding the stairs again.

Trust me this deep in the forest.

The spell is breaking with every step.

Come closer.

For dVerse Open Link Nite.

Breach in the Moonlight

No one enters this deep into the forest. No one passes through my perimeter of wolves.

Yet the land speaks of new feet moving across the glen. The birds report news of a stranger in the deep.

I have been cut off for eons. I live in the high branches and the world under the tree. I have clear agreements with the great tribe of wolves. This can mean only one thing.

Love has found me.


Submitted for the Big Bad Wolf Exercise.  

Forest Fawn

I met you under a secret sky. The moon winked. The bullfrogs saw it. Jane and Mike went skinny dipping in the pond. The cattails were laughing.

It all happened while you danced.

You had grass stains on your knees and you were saluting the moon. You blew kisses in the air that cooled the breeze. You polished the faces of the prophets in the cliff wall.

You moved aside treetops to travel. You threw keys to the caged in the cities.

You were Night’s favorite daughter.

Your big cats found me behind a tree. I introduced myself to you. We did imitations of each other, and imitations of the imitations.

We caked ourselves in shore mud. The sky breathed down on us. Jane and Mike splashed in the dark water. The stars were laughing.

The moon winked. We had one night together.


For Poetry Jam's call for hallucinative work.

Condiments

For you, I mixed ketchup with red wine and stirred up a sauce that dropped a food critic to one knee. I found relish in the fridge and whipped up a sweet pickle ice cream you inhaled after your first tentative lick.

I crusted a beautiful filet of fish with crumbled Fritos.

I pickled leftover watermelon rind and baked Fruit Loop cupcakes that ended up on the menu at some fancy joint in New York.

I chilled honey-minted ice tea after an afternoon sunning.

I steeped the risotto in cheddar cheese, only because there were no strawberries.

I enjoy rummaging through society’s dustbin for treasures that need polishing, like working out of your mostly empty fridge.

You whip up the whimsical in me.

Uninvited Guests

I see you’re as popular as ever, which I suppose means everything is right with the universe. The tomato reddens, the moon rises, the Cubs stink and you’re leading a crowd of star-crossed men everywhere they want to go.

That’s so typical of you.

When the bottle broke, you made stained glass. And for this green chain of hope around your neck, the dawn has prepared breakfast in bed for you.

The air wants to carry you, and the sky has already leaned over and tapped you on the shoulder. The red fox is bringing you tea. The blue moon wants a rematch at hearts after you won last time.

Jesus is at the front door hoping for a bite to eat. Buddha is in the kitchen rummaging through your junk food.

I knew when we hooked up a few million years ago I’d have to share you, so I have to remind myself that sooner or later we will have each other to ourselves once again. Sooner or later the dusk and the star god will stop making plays for you and stop referring to me as the bellboy.

Sooner or later, the entire cast of characters will, satisfied or unsatisfied, go about their merry business, whatever it happens to be these days.


For open link night at dVerse.

Of the Wild

And so here we are, at the comical downfall of yet another great imperial power.

My dear, the gods could place us underground among dirt balls and bad water and I would weep with gratitude to touch your face in the dark. I do not need to live as a big cat smelling your musk in my late summer mane to get high.

I get high by your side in any skin suit.

Twelve thousand years ago we watched the humans and wolves come together. Then we ambled over the cracked earth in our caravan. We had our own pride, our own healing tongues, the sun and each other.

We had no words, only the holy language of understanding everything was ours with each other, and nothing by ourselves in the dark.

I am awake while you rest. I have scratched promises into the sky and marked this patch of earth with gouges, tonight and thousands of years ago. I did this for us and all who come after.

This clearing is ours because we are here.

My home is where you rub up against me.


Posted to Poetry Picnic on Gooseberry Island.

The Dark Season Rolls Over

Autumn dreamed of browning the tall grass and yellowing the leaves, cooling the stream waters and turning loose the ghosts from the ground, killing the flowers and shortening the days.

Dawn and Dusk served the seasons, and Autumn released the Halloween demons through more darkness.

Autumn sent life scurrying underground and the spirits spilling over the land. Autumn opened the underworld as well as the darkness.

Autumn’s touch meant death, but he strung the paper jewels together, lit the hills on fire and toasted the vines. He skimmed the pink sky and frosted the mornings. 

Autumn braided the fine branches of the tree of life.

Autumn made beautiful things, and only Summer saw this. Summer enjoyed Autumn's love for seeing this.

Every year Autumn's greatest work of art was killing his love for Summer into all the fall colors.

Autumn wanted to cover Summer’s meadow in maple leaves and breathe on the back of her flowered ear. 

Autumn rolled over and dreamt of late Summer.


This is the tenth part of The Seasons. Here's the beginning.

Open

Pull a pail of sparkles from the stone well. Shave crème from the blue sky. The ocean is reaching out for you.

Climb the eternal tree at dawn. Share secrets with the fish in the deep. Finish a work of art sitting on the easel for decades.

Kiss the face of a goddess. Walk on Spanish tiles in bare feet. Hear me whisper from across the world.

For so many lifetimes, since the father of creation rubbed us together from clumps of clay, we have been opening our baby eyes.

Some of us unfold slowly to the light. Some of us need time to believe it's true.

We are allowed to exist.

As we are.