Embrace of the sorrow we share enfolds
us in Spirit, masquerading as emptiness.

Our names disappear into ether. Our bodies
given up to the mourning in the inky wet sea,

In the insufferable howling of wind is the crackling
terror of the fire, our landforms quickly vanishing.

We, the invisible ones, are indivisible too. Once we sat,
backs resting against the huge trunks of redwood trees.

Now afloat, we, once filled with love, have lost our tears.
They froze on bright red cheeks, then icy tears appeared,

Melted under the sun. No one can find us weeping though
we are. We have spoken, our tongues in constant motion,

Revealing our essential homelessness, we have dissolved
indecipherable with Spirit flying, twirling, falling, yearning.

We have covered everything, yet we are unknown. In the
place these tiny specks land, we cannot register home.

In hands of Spirit, we alight in blessed mounds of the
indigenous, in integration of grey whales into end times.

Of Earth, in extinction of butterflies, or in the random
crown 
of Corona, she sweeps the world of elders and children


With death or disability. A vision of future portends diversity
In interrelationship of all beings: simultaneous with the poet’s

Need to chronicle disintegration in a chorus of
burnt branches whose voices foretell. In Spirit,

Dry leaves know things we humans dare not tell there is
insistence in the birds choking on seed. The song of the

Wren is clear, yet sparse. The flight of sparrow from
sycamore to wooden fence moves inquiry into threat.

The wonder of feathered lives spins short spans.
We humans — architects of doom. In olden days,


The cypress told us our destiny was to sing.
Should we listen, or intone. Might we shift our

Focus less on fear of crisis, more on imagining
how we may live, die, be born again intensely

Interconnected and related. Hearts inclined
glory in sky, roots grounded in earth,

Disparate airy voices joined in chirping
praise, wings, fins, legs dance together.

Then we rise.

Who sees mountains on footprints,
the skins of onions as flood
plains, blades of grass as
bamboo forests, scarlet feathers
as skeletal sunsets.

Who delves into the soul of things,
penetrates the ordinary layer
of reality and comprehends
inexplicable beauty everywhere.

Whose impeccable sight grasps
the wonder of creation, the
mystery inherent in the largest
and smallest form of life on
the planet.

Whose eye focuses on totality and
singularity simultaneously.
Holds the past, present, and future
of any sentient being within silent stake.

Whose wrinkled skin bulges and encircles
the enormous energy of my gargantuan
gaze. Whose skin crackles and folds around
ultimate knowing.

The vision of the planet, whose images
are stored in the infinite crevices
of my ancient memory.

Who sees beyond the pictures of life,
death and rebirth into the realm of
the unconscious.
Who sees dream sequences
without closing my eyes.

Who imagines and envisions outcomes
never before predicted.

The presence of the land is undeniable,
yet something subtle has gone away.
Listen to endangerment in all voices.

It seems two hundred ardent winters pass,
not to mention spring. So much sadness
rolled through your veil, our eyes growing

Soft as we climbed over our fallen fence,
over your field. You say the bunch grass
grew shoulder high where the laurel bay

Trees spotted soft curves. We whisper
under the shelter of the immense oaks,

as you rustle leaves and giant acorns.

In the darkening, you make us weary
and quiet. We breathe, we listen,
You tell us inside our bodies is a place.

We imagine violet changing into indigo
light, floating, breathing to blue wafting
into green. We listen to their breath turn

Gold falling into orange. You are Spirit
turning deep red. We look to your east
and see sunrise lemon pepper trees.

Listening to great-horned owl
eyeing field mouse scurrying through
meadow. How can we be certain of

Our efforts to protect you, great Spirit?
Will our attempts or our witness come to
anything? You are connected to ancient

Flocks of geese rising with noise like one
of my hurricanes. We will know death,
but not end of our acts. We leave pride

As we listen, but not hope. In the south,
you bring us to noon. Red-tailed hawk
lands on buckeye tree with a whoosh.

We hear the sun bear down on your fallen
branches, the seeds we shall gather.
What tears us apart? What spurs us —

The keen division you insist works
against outspoken wishes of our
elders. We hear we are separate

From herds of elks’ tremendous horns
grazing in masses. Spirit, we know you
are the land, feeding hungering animals,

Watering the thirsty beings. You watch us
imagine our illusion of security, not 

sanctuary from the cycle gnawing us.

Angry, we toil in Spirits’ loving dance.
In the west, you set persimmon sun,
charcoal streaks the sky. Jackrabbits

Burrow to flee sight of bald eagles gliding
overhead. What hastened evening for you?
To draw us near to others, comfort them?

Witness all we fear: mountain lions, bobcats,
coyotes under peaceful boughs of olive trees.
Caught in the palms of your creatures’ hands,

Leaving safety, not friends. You blanket northern
skies. Midnight covers raccoons, possums, silver
shadow of moon. You hear water bubbling from

The sea. Spring brooks, ponds, even lakes, filling
rivers, fall into valleys under the clarity of stars.
Humans dream together, as you build a mountain

Of twig and the black earth as we sleep.
Our prayers braided, laid down at the altar of change.
We leave, begging to climb, not to fall.

Offered up in the tule fog of morning,
rustling by teasel, whispering sisters
steer through the salt marsh in
rusty yellow boats, captives
of the great blue heron.
One cautions the other.
Aim your paddle at the roots
of the reeds we’re to gather.
In a dream,
their grandmother said,
weave a cape, cut, dry
soak tule in salt water.
Make days together
twisting time into strength.

I am the Keeper of the Mysteries.

I know,
I only understand imaginal realms; hence
I keep still, knowing why seasons turn—
how truth is never fathomed in clean, neat prose.

I have held the mysteries in myself, contain multitudes,
embrace opposites. I am formed from paradox.
I rein in the mysteries.
Life, death, rebirth are the steps of my dance.

Metaphor is my landscape.
I am a vast canvas maintaining space
where beings offer themselves to one other.
I clasp dry trees of my chaparral savannah

In its red, crusty soil. Madrone and manzanita
ruled among knob cone pine, luxurious in youth,
scraggly with tan oaks scattering acorns
all over the rolling hills.

Under Me is where depth flows—hard water, minerals.
My forms receive fire, rain, earthquake, plague.
My depths take in ash pits, smoldering leaves —
embers falling on a forest canopy.

I am One who charts the Great Migrations.
I open with the Sun, radiating on the trees
of life the beauty that captivates all beings.

I am One whose meadows uphold slender legs
adorned—golden brown skin. My canyons carry
paws slinking silently, echoing limestone’s stark face.
I am One whose duff is stampeded with others,

Close, connected in my sweet, dusty face.
My ridges hold a travel that goes farther
than humans could ever understand.

The eyes of stealth behind the mask,
the ears of the wind
as it dances through the leaves—
the one who owns the land.

Je suis P-A-T-R-I-A et les champs de la patria.

I am the woman whose love for Her has flowed deep and dark.

P-A-T-R-I-A de l’amour.

I am the land that has received her aging love.

Les champs de l’amour.

I am the land who has received the crying waters.

Les champs de l’eau.

I am the woman whose tears will not cease.

Le triste P-A-T-R-I-A.

I am the woman whose wise blood has dried up.

Le sangré sec P-A-T-R-I-A.

I am land who has soaked up tears continually without stopping.

Les champs triste sans arrête.

I am land who honors blood of a woman who kept it inside.

Blesser le sangré.

I am the woman who sees shape in oak, ancestor in pennyroyal.

P-A-T-R-I-A voyer les arbres.

I am the woman who feels the fire that consumes the trees.

P-A-T-R-I-A dans le feu.

I am the land seen by the woman and calls those eyes my own.

P-A-T-R-I-A avec voyer.

I am the land wind-whipped as topsoil turned by an invisible hand.

P-A-T-R-I-A changer avec le vent.

Not knowing why or how, I’ve found
the Pathless Path, happy to traverse

The Mother of the Heart, my home
knowing no nation, no beginning

No boundary, no end. Moving
where my heart leads, none

Too fast. Beauty is the one thing
stopping me to be held in rapture.

Sometimes, I sense the presence
of another form — bird song, river

Roar, sunlight shaft stretched out
through majestic pine. It is time

To listen, perhaps to speak, then
hold council, spiral space drawn

In dizzying rapture by dragonflies.
All my relations circle round to tell

My story with its cycle — life, death,
rebirth —  and its random offerings — 

Solace, comfort, danger, strange 
music filled with shadows in light.

No instructions here, but an embrace — 
A shining web of silken strands spun

Again and again, forward, backward, 
upside down in pleasure and pain.

In no order other than my heart’s
beating inside  — Oh cadence of

pathlessness, warm, rich, endless —
held by the breath of the wind.

Still I am aroused,
fog descends, drab
brother rolling ravines

Glistening then wet.
Exposed — pain
yearns for love,

Release, and fall
back into myself.
Offspring dig into

My flesh by day,
they forget me.
Yet they will return

Into my perilous night.
I will nurture my children,
then I will eat them.

I know birds eat — all
berries — messengers
of heart harbored in hollow.

Robins fatten on seeds —
plump flesh of soil heaped,
damp maidenhead turning
Black eucalyptus peeling
creamy veins of secret rivers.
Berries scream red through

Winter — piercing pleasure in
curls of bark. Night lengthening
next to her ripening.

Sister stars laughing — long
and cold — the trip hard, far
beyond this place where no

One sees spruce, sun-dashed,
or rain-impregnated hills, wind
funneled or the coast’s ragged

Dance. In an empty region, dying
light burns steady. When called,
sisters, you may not soon return,

Nor may you linger. Hurled earthward,
you land square beneath raven sky
On this rocky trail of hurt. No balm

For your wounds but words —
the search greater than all telling

Inside the body of fire— this live altar.

Woman told Heart she has cultivated a habit of living
in her head to avoid the pain she felt in her heart.

Heart asked Woman if that has worked for her.
Woman said, “No, it was merely a distraction.”

Heart asked Guardian, “Who told her to do this?”
Guardian replied, “I did.”

Heart asked Guardian, “Why did you guide her this way?”
Guardian told them both, “It was too much for her as a child.

She felt without a home— on her own.” Heart said, “Her heart did hurt, but no deeper than her strength and courage.”

Woman told Heart and Guardian of her vision living
in the moment, of feeling at home rather than longing

For home, of belonging on land, on Earth. She said
this was her way to wisdom.

Guardian told Woman she spoke well for herself, agreed to drop his guard, set her free to walk the Earth, to be at home.

Heart told Woman her heart was her home— as wide
— as deep as the whole Earth.

Woman asked them both if she could carry paper and pen where she went as medicine as well as clover

(The luck to be happy), sage (the remembrance of breath), jasmine (the tenderness of all sentient beings) and

Fennel (the taste of the wild) along with her. Writing had
been her home, and plants would help her heal.

Guardian told Woman this would be a fine way to remember and honor the Earth as home.

Heart said Woman’s pen would be her golden string, would allow her to circumnavigate the Earth

Her beautiful home— happiness, health,
love, and freshness.