Poetry & Creative Writing

Death is as inevitable,

as life is unstoppable.

 

A raven lays dead 

by the roadside. 

Dandelions sprouting 

through the cement 

beside its grave.

 

Little fragile plants

who refuse to give up 

 

on seeking sunlight.

 

Black feathers 

blown away in the wind,

 

parted from its scattered remains.

 

••••••••

 

A deer skull lays nestled 

beneath a fallen branch in the forest.

Fresh spring grass grows 

through clean white bone.

 

Overturned, there is life yet to be found.

 

Cavernous cranium emptied 

to create space for new embodiment.

 

A snail has made his home

in the stillness that death has left.

 

An open cove for new things to grow.

 

••••••••

 

Last spring I made a grave 

 

for the hermit thrush 

who broke its neck 

on the sliding glass door. 

 

I laid her beneath the boxwood tree on a bed of rose petals. 

 

This spring the tree bloomed in full.

 

Her energy returned and manifested in each new bud. 

 

••••••••

 

Everywhere I look 

I see the eternal summoning 

of life through the veil 

of death.

 

The outpouring of a cup 

as it flows 

into the heart 

of a new vessel.

 

Life and death 

have truly 

never been separate.

 

Death is merely the portal 

through which life carries on. 

 

Energy seeking to be reborn in each and every form. 

 

Always shifting the balance between one and the other.

 

Like a wave in motion. 

Pushed onto the land, 

and yet called, 

in return to the sea.

 

There is a satisfaction I find in that.

 

That all anything ever is,

 

and has been, 

 

is energy in movement.

 

A current on a journey with no final destination.

 

Like a möbius strip.

The line between life and death is thin.

 

Just when you’ve found the top you've reached the bottom, 

and then you find the top again.

 

Ebbing

Flowing.

 

Becoming. 

Unbecoming.

 

••••••••

 

One day I will experience my promised ending.

The life I know now will be gone, 

but my energy will live on.

 

My mind will grow anew in the flowers and drift free in the clouds.

 

I will see through the refreshing morning dew 

which catches sunlight in a spiders web, 

entranced like the many flies caught in its thread.

 

My heart will become the grass and the mountains and the trees.

 

My body and blood will become the soil, 

and I will become the bones of the earth, 

Like the animals and many ancestors 

who sleep as crystals beneath my feet.

 

My dreams will cast themselves in starlight.

 

My wisdom will exist in the passing of time.

 

My spirit will live in the water and the wind.

 

And when it rains,

    and thunder crashes,

 

you might hear me singing 

of a new life being born.

On visiting the El Dorado National Forest.

 

Walking over Nisenan 

And Wašišiw shadows

 

Their ancestry dancing 

In the tips of the evergreens

And likenesses

 

Appearing in the faces 

Of the mountainside

 

Souls that became Devas 

To the ancient woods…

 

The Altar begins to set itself

A stone coyote skull at its center

 

Many crystals we present 

And many we gather at our feet

Offerings decorated by mosses 

And branches of pine

 

Balanced and equal placements

Attuned to the polarity of all things

 

The flame is struck

And incense qicks

In folds and spirals

 

We three

Sestras 

Dance

And howl

And pour offerings onto the earth

 

Singing in silken smoke

And drinking from pink champagne 

Blushing the color of the sky

Whose clouded wings 

Expand in entrancing orange

 

We sit  

And fill our three cups 

While the last remaining light 

Departs us

 

Watching

As sun sets 

 

My eyes adjust 

To the pitch of night 

 

And in the airy darkness 

I walk among spirits

 

Of the land and sky

 

Timeless and formless

 

Energies of the stones 

And trees 

And hollows

 

Their faces and bodies 

Ether 

Formed against the darkness

 

Water and the flow 

Of the Aurora Borealis 

Quintessential beings 

Of eternal essence

 

A salamander made of starlight

Whose barium flame burns chartreuse

Amid an oceanic black skyline

 

A mountain cat cut from a nebula

Of fuschia and ruby

Glows her sly grin

 

Friendly guides 

Who act as lights 

Mimicking quasars 

And astral bodies

 

They whisper to me 

Their love of the forest

 

The land is their mother 

As it is mine

 

I sleep safely 

Atop the cliff

Beneath the stars

 

When I awake

 

Brilliant sunlight refracts 

Against chalcedony 

And quartz monuments

And sparkles 

In the dust beneath my feet

 

I think about our footprints

My sisters and mine 

And those 

Which once stewarded this landscape

 

And I think of the time before us all

 

When it was only

The sun

And the trees

And the land

Which feet would one day 

Walk upon

 

The sun rose as a brilliant white fang

Which bites my back a bloody red burn

As I descend the mountaintop 

Following the sound of water

 

The heads of sharks 

Erupt from boulders on the cliffside

As if drawn out 

By the scent of my blood boiling

 

Monuments that echo the sea 

Reflected in mountains

 

As the sea mirages the sky

 

Sculpted in the form of Isurus

Appear the two heads of Janus

Permeating 

In the timeless stone faces

Of Earth's oldest living creation

 

The God who guards the portal gate

Has made himself known here

 

Seeing us come as he watches us go

 

We three slide down his back 

Flowing to the canyon creek

Like droplets of water 

 

In flowing we discover that

Between these great stone bodies 

There exists a hidden space

Where crag 

Does not meet the earth below

 

Time has made it a megalith

 

A hollow sanctuary for those 

Seeking temperance 

From the heat

 

Gliding into this pocket of shade

We settle on our backsides

Cooling ourselves in this cavern

Like lizards hidden between rocks

 

Daylight streams fine ribbons of gold 

Through the keyhole above us

 

It calls to life a small bed of moss

An altar to the cavern

 

The chasm vibrates 

 

Stones humming 

The frequency 

Of their mother

 

I feel transported

As though I have 

Slipped 

 

Into hallowed ground

 

A sacred chamber 

Of Earthly resonance,

Or perhaps a temple 

To the Sidhe.

 

My forehead touches stone at the narrow,

I meet my lips to kiss its ancient face 

Which is overlooked by sunlight.

 

A wish 

To be reborn 

As I depart 

From the hollow of reprieve

 

Feet first 

Into my resurrected energy

I am birthed from stone 

 

Slipping out the other end of the keyhole

 

We continue our descent to the song of water

 

Trodding down the hill 

A dove flies out from the rockside

Exposing behind fern shutters

Four speckled gem blue eggs

 

Droplets of life 

On the mountain

 

A mirror to our rebirth

As we three droplets 

Are pulled to the brook 

 

We cascade

Running 

Magnetized 

To a place unseen

 

The rippling psalm of Osun

Serenades us

Calling us downstream 

 

Through aqua pools of snow-melt

And over rainbow stones

Which dance 

Beneath singing spirals of water

 

All around us

The sheds of nymphs 

Transformed 

 

Clinging husks on the fringe 

Between water and land

 

What is left behind 

When life is reborn

 

A skin of the past left

On the starting line

Of a new life

 

We tiptoe across logs

Lightened by the radiance of many days

 

Jumping and swimming into pools

Down the mountainside

 

We follow her waters Westward

 

As the sea calls the name 

Of all rivers and streams

 

She veins across the land 

And we flow with her

Translucent 

 

I know not where I am headed

But I go frolicking 

In love with the essence

Of this day

 

The air hums

Alongside the choir of many birds

And the rippling tongues of the stream

 

Swimming,

I feel as though I were an Undine

Existing within the water itself

Merging cells

 

Shimmering transparent bodies of water

Ferried along the river Styx

 

My past self becomes a spirit walking

In the shadow of my self emergent 

 

Guarded by a nursery of giant rhubarb

We three swim in the birthing pools 

Of dragonflies

 

Three nymphs drawn to the 

Embryonic waters of this sacred grotto

 

The waters become our chrysalis

A sacred space of transformation

 

We are primordial in our following of the stream

Bare as Venus birthed from seafoam

 

We reach the nexus 

 

A shining pool 

Osun’s Mirror

 

A Neptunian and Venusian grotto

 

Azure waters

Lapping the bank 

of the white and ochre canyon

 

My sister notices 

A doorway just above the water's edge

Opening upward into the cliffside

A tunneling skylight

 

Entering this mysterious tower

We climb the footholds 

To the sunlit portal above

Which overlooks the magnificent pool 

 

Etched of solid stone

Worn by water 

And smoothed by time

 

A natural wonder to behold

There is no answering 

How this rabbit hole 

Has come to be

 

So we ask no questions

Only expressing amazement for what is

 

I wonder if it is the same

When a nymph 

First greets the sky 

And becomes dragonfly

 

Onward 

We float as time guides us

To the narrowing of the stream

 

The water thins 

Revealing the smooth stones 

Of the riverbed

 

We walk lightly to the end of the lagoon

 

A little enclave

 

Where great umbrella plants 

Guard the realm beyond

 

At the edge of this garden gate 

 

There waits 

A crystal

 

Like the Isarus’ of the cliffside

It too is shaped like the head of a shark 

Poking its nose above the surface of the springwaters

 

Sparkling white 

And faintly pinkish 

With inclusions of iron hematite 

 

She names herself

A whisper in my ear

 

Tiburon

 

My sister tells me 

Tiburón 

Means shark in Spanish

 

How fantastic a journey 

 

Whose face is reflected in every stone

Surrounding these primordial waters

 

At the edge of the grotto

We thank Osun

River deity

Daughter of laughter and freshwater

You have blessed us with your sacred spring

 

A true Aqua de Vita

In which we have found life renewed

 

And in it, I believe I may have found my wings

 

My faith to fly

In the light of my intuition

 

My spirit follows

the laughing sounds of the river

And the flow of Venusian liberties

 

And it shall lead me onward 

To the light of my dreams

 

For it has led me here

To this place of ancient Gods and Faeries

*Based on a vision I received, age 8, 2006*

On Discovering Myself…

​

I. Beginning: The Hermits Lantern

​

I walk deeper into the dark and mysterious forest.

A small and innocent child, 

Guided by the light of my heartfire lantern. 

 

Flickering, lapping flames lick the glass panels 

Of the creaking iron spryte, reflecting in tongues and wisps. 

The lantern light sparks stars off of my new moon eyes.

 

The flame glints like sunlight 

Against the hollow arching of trees 

Which silhouette amber above and around 

The gold halo encircling my cloaked shoulders and hooded head. 

 

Like a firefly stood before a cavernous midnight tunnel stretching into the unknown.

I flicker through. 

 

Dark night navy velvet brushes 

Against my cheek and slides against my wrist 

As I hold my lantern forward to the path, 

Trusting only in my moment, 

Seeing only through my spotlight 

Against a vast abyss of darkness and trees. 

 

I clamber over roots and knots in the path,

Persevering over rugged terrain.

 

My breath mists before me in the crisp night air. 

Panting, as I grasp over crumbling sandstone and roughage.

 

I think of the path I pave in my journeying, 

Unfettered by its wilderness. 

 

My heart races with curiosity as I travel forward,

Still unsure of my purpose here. 

 

I trust the faceless guardian at my back 

Who encourages me onward, 

In a direction I cannot see 

But feel in my soul.

 

Shrouded in gauzy black mist, 

This timeless spirit with endless knowing eyes 

Holds me lovingly by the shoulders, 

Protecting me as I embark 

In this surrender to the path. 

 

My golden lantern brings us through the trees 

And to a clearing of inky uncertainty.

 

“Stop.” the endless whispers.

“For what?” I inquire.

Silence replies “You'll see.”

 

It is only my guardian, I, and my warm light, 

The golden eye of the night.

 

Until…

 

Another firefly light begins to grow in the distance, 

Small and innocent as its bearer grows closer and closer to the void between us.

I yearn my neck, peering forward to see who comes into view

 

My heart pounds faster as I wonder in silent anticipation.

 

Through the forest of destiny… A familiar velvet cloaked figure 

Bobbs past shrubbery and shadowed trees.

 

The mystery grows closer 

Guided by the golden glow 

Of a hermits light. 

 

I have to know “Who is it?” 

I ask my familiar voice.

“You will see...Watch.” 

Speaks the darkness.

 

At last, the mahogany cloaked figure breeches the unknown.

Smiling beneath hood covered eyes.

 

She reveals herself, 

Unveiling the dark cloud of hair

Which fringes her pale moonlight face.

Mysterious eyes glint 

Against the warm embers of lantern fire.

 

Her back is shrouded by darkness,

And my guardian stands there also.

Mirrored eyes of undying consciousness 

Hovering in a protective embrace. 

 

“Who is she?” I wonder.

My guardian whispers softly 

“She is you.” 

 

•••••••••••••

*Based on the same vision picked up from the other side, age 22, 2020*

On Remembering Myself…

 

II. Returning: The Chariot Which Rides The Wave of Time

 

As I have aged to meet her again,

In this liminal forest,

I emerge from the shadows, 

Unto the feet of a brightly lit child 

Held by the arms of death.

 

She is young and wise.

As she is guided by the angel of darkness,

Who steers her path into the unknown.

 

She peers at me under moonbeams, 

Full of questions, yet to be answered.

I gaze lovingly at her behind my knowledge 

Of what comes next.

 

Death ferries her onward,

And she embarks through the night on starlight,

Riding the ocean of time 

On a constellation chariot.

 

She too is an astral body.

Made up of stars and illuminated dreams.

 

The wheels of light which carry her onward 

Turn brilliantly, clashing against a spray of foamy glistening galaxies.

Through space and time, she steers her course.

Adjusting and correcting her direction as the unpredictable tests her strength.

The intangible leading her ever still. 

 

The wind howls in chorus to her whistling propulsion through the dream.

She rides forward in her carriage, pulled by the lapping wave of change. 

 

The wave squalls like the hooves of wild horses

Galloping and cascading, crashing and stampeding into the night 

She runs with them, Laughing and braying.

 

She moves with Eridanus, the river

Flowing blissfully, opening her mind  

To find what joy I am remembering. 

 

Her future becomes me. 

 

Descending on the cosmos 

She ventures after memories and premonitions.

 

She rises like the harvest moon,

Radiating liquid fire,

Sat upon her wave of desire.

She sets into the telling of the journey, 

Carving her path in the milky way.

 

She knows not where she goes, 

But she goes.

 

And so she flows,

 

Onward, she, the dreamer…

 

Who I have found.

Sunshine beams golden 

through the fragrance 

of white blossoms.

 

I am back 

in my favorite place, 

the home of my heart.

 

My palms raise 

to greet the warmth of the sun.

 

I gaze lovingly at my fingers, 

stretching 

from small hands 

and skinny olive arms.

 

Rays part in beams 

as if it is I who holds the light.

 

I enter the awareness

​

that this is only the beginning for me,

​

and how fleeting this moment will become in the scheme of my life.

 

Eyes wide to the sky I wonder 

where I will be tomorrow, 

 

and the day after.

 

Patches of pure crystalline blue 

contrast the earthy hues of the almond tree.

Green sliver leaves extend 

from a tangle of smooth and craggy branches.

 

She is decorated in her finest growth today.

 

Delicate milky blooms burst in fullness, 

dashed by a blush of pink.

Little ochre stamen part wildly 

between the five curled petals of each petite bud.

 

Some still so new and young, 

they have yet to be revealed to the world.

 

Tiny, round, tight, 

and closed on themselves 

as they continue to awaken.

 

The day itself vibrates with joy,

 

and the delicate trilling of bird song attunes 

in harmonious bliss.

 

A splendid abundance of wild grass cools my back, 

as I lay under the mottled shadow of the tree.

 

A whispering voice tells me, “cherish this moment.”

 

Wonder shines through the black sapphire smalls of my mahogany eyes.

 

I smile, a big exuberant grin, 

and then sigh a grand and contented breath.

Knowing this time is mine. 

 

Alone and yet I am home. 

 

My laughter bursts, 

a chortled dancing little giggle, 

like the sound of fairy wings 

and small bells.

 

I sigh again, a long and expansive release.

I surrender happily to the land and the moment.

 

My heart flutters and floats, 

 

like a feather in the breeze. 

 

At peace and free. 

 

I love this tree.

​

In her years 

she has bowed her body 

in prayer to the earth 

and become a cove.

 

So fondly 

she protects me. 

With curved limbs, 

she embraces me.

 

A warren all on her own, 

and I, the little rabbit in her hold. 

 

With knowing limbs 

and weathered whispers 

spoken through the shuddering of her leaves.

 

She consoles me. 

 

Nurtures me. 

 

Grows me with her. 

 

Ancient mother of almond wood,

 

I wonder how many years,

 

right here have you stood. 

 

The cool summer breeze catches in through her hollow 

and whisks the heat from my flushed cheeks. 

 

My arms fall to my sides. 

​

Unfurled, as I lay with my back to the earth.

 

Long wild blades of grass brush against my gentle skin.

​

I run my fingers through the strands,    

as if it were the hair of the earth.

 

I can feel the dirt rising under my fingernails 

as I play with the texture of spring.

 

My heart open, 

my arms outstretched, 

  my knees bent, 

and bare feet planted 

    flat on the lea.

 

I let my tented legs sway playfully 

and my hips burrow into the ground.

 

It feels as though I too have grown roots here.

 

My presence creates a nest, 

a shallow parting 

in the luscious bed of green.

 

The perfume

of succulent flowers,

fresh bright meadow grass, 

and rich warm earth 

fill me. 

 

I close my eyes, 

and for this moment 

 

I will always be here.

 

In this living cavern 

grown from love.

 

I am home.

My eyes glaze over in the shower.

I want to forget these familiar details.

White tiles and frosted glass, 

lined with brass.

 

Sometimes I sit 

When I am too tired to stand.

I listen to the sound of water 

Propelling against tile. 

Eyes shut, dripping down my face.

 

Trying to forget that

​

This is where I held you last.

The summer heat scolds. 

My steaming scalp begs to find some shade.

The itch of tawny straw prickles my senses, but I remain in my hay nest.

 

Soaking up the heavy grounding rays of golden sun beams, which cascade 

down a horizon of proportionally darkened trees. 

 

Flashes of copper reflect against my umber locks. 

The warm sunshine trickles down, kissing every inch of my glistening dewy skin. 

Each little hair follicle bristles against the presence of clammy ocean water sweat 

as it seeps from my pinprick pores. 

 

My glassy, watery, dark brown eyes unveil themselves 

beneath long spider-leg eyelashes and furrowed mossy brows. 

Radiant red and orange consume my vision as I blink, slowly and thoughtfully. 

Entranced by the web of halo rainbows cast in my fringe of lashes.

 

Peacefully I listen to the skittering and buzzing vibrations above me, 

squinting into the white hot sun, behind waxy paper eyelids. 

 

Dragonflies dance a waltz of midsummer lullabies, their silhouettes intuitively fall and rise. 

 

Pendulating across a drapery of blue silk skies and perfect cotton clouds. 

​

A scene of dreams vignetted by pure solar radiance.

Cut-piece from the pages of the Prophet by Khalil Gibran

​

Priestess 

Speak of prayer.

In your days

 

Is prayer living ether?

 

Darkness

Space

Dawning heart.

 

Weep

Your soul summons you

Though weeping

Until you come laughing.

 

Pray.

Rise.

Meet your visit 

to that temple invisible.

 

Enter the temple.

 

It is enough. 

 

Enter invisible.

 

I cannot teach you the prayer in your heart.

 

If you listen.

 

Stillness.

 

Silence.

 

Winged self

Is thy will.

It is thy desire.

 

Thy urge 

turn nights into days

 

Ask for more.

Thyself givest all.