Boundaries between this world and the next
blur as I stand in mist
feet upon the earth, arms raised
billowness seeping from the sky.
I tip my face into the hovering cloud
spirit worlds surround me
and you are here,
my cheeks moist from your caress.
Slowly, sadness comes with warmth
as sun clears the air, blues the sky
eyes tear to realize
I am grounded, and you
are truly gone.
In response to Daily Post Challenge: Boundaries. Photos from dome car ride near Anchorage, Alaska.
Cool crisp sun filled morn
sand colder between my toes
sea shore autumn calm.
In the misty dawn,
at the abyss of my dream
limbs shudder,
charred pleas in ebony.
Seedlings lie in state,
interred by ash.
Plundered by flame,
the earth crackles for foolish men
and soft rain begins to fall,
her tears for grandeur lost.
Scuffed Red Wing leather boots tread across forest floor. Trekking poles swing naturally at my side, two more points of contact to the earth. Closest thing to being four limbed.
Sun filters through leaves, beams on stands of gooseberry red, chokecherry orange and fiddlehead green. I walk through scrubby tree roots, climb over rocks to cross a stream, carried by wind and sun and bird song in the air.
Last week’s hike swirls fading as I maneuver city streets. Blue suit jostled, surrounded by tall grey, red brick towers that block the sun, save corners where green lights mean go. High heels comply, stumble from curb to pavement, and my feet ache again.
Written from a September Challenge prompt: juxtapose opposites in a more subtle wording of contrast. A prose poem.
I press my hand into the rock
this cave dwelling of yesteryear
and yesteryears before that
hand in hand, exactly
living inside solidified.
Bending still,
my eyes turn upward
seek the crevasse,
its light
and breath of breeze.
Clouds stir
create, reform
amorphous ambivalent shapes.
A spirit courses through my fingertips
perhaps rides the wisps above.
And I understand. I feel. I know.
Those before me, before them
all are dear to her,
threads of life intermingled
tied to the earth’s core.
Me in 2003 — at Walnut Canyon, Arizona. The Sinagua people lived in the cliff dwellings within the mountain sides. This is me, putting my hand into a print in the cave wall — I was so moved. My hand fit exactly. I’ve never forgotten it. The second “picture” – my words, written next to the picture in my scrap book….”It is an amazing feeling of connection to humans of another time.” All these years later, still remember that feeling and it motivated this piece.
We fly in this metal cylinder
to escape the city frenzy
and we still sit in the midst of it.
Hear metal belt click shut
and engines roar
feel the rush of air
from round blow holes overhead.
Nothing natural in this enclosed world.
Binoculars hang about our necks
a noose we choose to use.
Instead of trekking high,
step by step, from tree line to the sky
we ride a four wheeled bus,
now dusty from its assault,
on roads carved deep
into your very core.
We crane our necks
at white dots on mountain tops
adjust a rubber eye piece to our face
seek to magnify without a fuzzy blur.
Specs become horned dall sheep,
heads down to graze upon the rocks
unaware of human spies
with black binoculars eyes.
Last night, we communed with earth
faces up, we stared
into the cold black diamond sky.
One star jarred loose,
arced its way across the sky
as if to tell us in its glitter script,
you are the voyeurs within this space.
Denali National Park bus. The Kantishna Experience goes to the end of the one and only road in the park — to mile 92. I was struck by the magnificence of the land and its inhabitants: grizzlies (see poem Ursa), caribou, moose, dall sheep. And I kept thinking that we were the voyeurs, the interlopers in this incredible place.
The glass is clean today
and we are quiet on either side.
One hand at rest,
age lines etched in black skin
fingers curled.
Mom sits closely by, always watching.
Her babe with impish chatter,
swings away
quickly scampers home
safely tucked inside those long warm arms.
You sit, eyes not meeting mine,
lips pursed, a sadness to your face.
Which of us, in this family,
is behind the glass,
and which of us in front?
Where does this zoo begin,
and where does it really end?
Photos from our visit last year to San Diego Zoo. Post in response to Daily Post Photo Challenge: Connected.
If you look with the mind of mother earth, in this place called Alaska, you become the earth.
Great calving sheets of ice seen from the haven of a cruise ship. We roar in excitement as you roar in pain. Losing part of yourself to the sea.
My boots trek through forest, stumble on tree roots, your uprooted veins. In the midst of rocky debris, at the toe of Laughton Glacier, a new sound. The relentless trickle of water into a glacial stream. Tears unabated, you weep cold rivulets, slowly, through hundreds of generations.
And I see. And I hear. Like a jagged shard of ice thrust through my heart. I understand this insidious thing we blithely call global warming. And I am chilled to the bone.
A prose poem, in the style of Joy Harjo.
Photos: Top: great slabs of ice shed from Mendenhall Glacier. Above left: standing on the “toe” of Laughton Glacier, after hiking 6.5 miles through Tsongas Forest and climbing through rocks on her debris field. This picture shows a gap — the “black cave” created by the ice melting…continuously dripping. The “rock” above the cave is the ice itself, narrowed from melting. It will eventually collapse into itself. All that you see above the “cave” is ice with debris its carried in its forward path. Right: the “ice field” our ship had to go through to get to Hubbard Glacier….which can be seen in the distance. Result of glacier calving.
See views of the glaciers themselves with my poem, In the Midst of Glaciers.
A different take on the Daily Post Photo Challenge: from every angle.
Tree top abandoned
you glide overhead
power and beauty combined
a national treasure.
Outstretched black wings
white head and tail
blend in sleek aeronautic form
sole presence in vast sky.
Suddenly
legs drop in mid-flight
fearsome talons glint in sun
stark contrast to sea serenity.
No hesitation,
double-back or fly around
fast dive, splash
water and body collide.
Plummet turns to majestic rise,
return to nest, the conqueror.
The moment, so fast in time
waters flow unbroken
unaware they’ve lost
a swift inhabitant
to the ruler of the sky.
Photos: from recent Alaska trip. Apologies they are not better….taken on cell phone. Eagle was magnificent!
Round haunches, vestigial tail
grizzly when disturbed,
you meander, content and calm
on Denali’s hallowed ground.
Forager by nature
low bush cranberries and blue ones too
two thousand garnered every day
sustenance for a long winter’s sleep.
From sight to paw to mouth,
our approach ignored
until windows fling open
and camera eyes gawk.
Suddenly, like Ursa Major
on guard from on high
you look at us
wee squatters on protected land.
And in that moment,
the lesson is realized.
You are the superior being
of this great mother called earth.
Amazing and magnificent creatures seen in Denali National Park.
lillian the home poet 