Photo N Federle: Egrets in Suisun Marsh, 2019
Bathe me in light, with warm
water wash, submerge
my submissive head,
my face, my hands,
my wayfaring feet.
Oh, cleanse me!
prepare me
to walk
into your perfect
day.
It flows
over highways
dripping down
lamp-posts
through gutters,
pounding
storm drains,
filling
narrow lanes,
past dark houses,
past high-tension
wires, driving
through
constraining fence,
unfettered
it fills
the green hills
and rolls
through folding slough, past
low bridge and causeway,
ever lower
down to Suisun Bay,
unstoppable
like a swimmer’s blood
pulsing through throbbing vein,
reaching for gate of gold
to break free,
to become
one with
One.
(19 April 2011)
Guardian oaks still embrace the People.
Meandering branches lean low,
give their clambering children
an easy climb
up high to where acorns
fall in the western wind
to feed
their hungry
souls.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Suisunes people, called The People of the West Wind, lived for over 10,000 years in the area where I now live… but they nearly died out within a generation of exposure to European missionaries seeking to save their souls. They would have eluded the attention of the Spanish longer had they not given refuge to escaped mission Indians. In 1810 several dozen of these gentle people committed suicide rather than submit to the Spanish.
If you listen carefully in the morning breeze you can still hear their laughter.
You’re painting in the kitchen
as John Denver sings his misty, old love songs
while by the shed
spring flowers burst into red and purple and white,
as the March sun rises and grief declines
to memory.
So here I write, our dogs
nuzzled close and warm
and contented.
North wind
rushes and blusters
in the bright March sun,
scatters
winter’s chill,
hints of the heat
to come.
Photo Brian Federle, Camping March 2010
Wind-ripped leaves
cover my yard
severed flesh, leathery
fingers splayed
grip the brick walkway.
Flush winter roses
drop petals,
red shrouds cover
glistening gold veins
sundered
from ravaged trees.
Yet the trees survive.
mimicking death’s
grey angularity
oblivious to the wind,
nude limbs
lean into the howling storm
and dream of June breezes,
singing green afternoons,
the faithful thrush
thrusting new life to flight.
But for now
black clouds gather
the winter wind sings dirges
for these sacrificial leaves
nourishing the famished earth.
(11/18/2010)
re-post 10/25/2017
Spring
Seven years after my father died
my first child, my son, was born in spring,
and in the gleaming, sterile room
I first held him in my arms
as, with his impossibly wide, blue eyes
he calmly gazed right into my raw soul,
and I felt in a sudden rush of warmth,
a timeless love
and at last discovered
the reason for my life.
It was then
I understood my father.
In my son’s face I saw my own
and felt my father’s eyes gazing
in warm wonder on me
and I glowed with
unconditional love for my son.
Just before nightfall
your new leaves
softly sway
in the cool delta breeze,
your limbs glint
in flames
a deeper shade
where rough trunk rises
from clambering vines,
to violet fire.
Oh! Dance with the angels!
Dance with Lord
of the Trees!
His breath will stir you to passion,
His song will lull you
to sacred sleep.
“Happiness consists in finding out precisely what the ‘one thing necessary’ may be, in our lives, and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.” Thomas Merton
rain
falling
tenderly
on spring grass, on leaves
bending as two mourning doves moan,
beat wide their wings and brush back the sky, falling low to
dark earth, gladly would I give it
all for a moment
in the glow
of your
eyes!
(9 April 2013)
Deep inside my silence
words glow like burning stones
plunging to dark waters.
Share with me my holy fire!
With joyful shouts,
we’ll flood the hidden rivers.
But if you leave
I cease.
My words die
without your eyes,
molder to
faded stains.
So come into my heart
and sing with me
this mystic chant!
We’ll be madmen,
hunting diamonds in the dark.
devastating velocity,
blood thirsty, fresh death-
dealing NRA
lies fly super-
sonic flesh thud-
ing ragged rounds
slamming into
stunned souls,
dreams
die.