Whirling through quiet depths
I am the medicine in the lights.

My medicine comes up for air,
out of the silt in a pointed stone,

Out of the sand on the ocean floor
then remedies rise like bubbles.

And peace lies in the velvet emptiness
that I love too much above and below.

I am the still places arising from the black
of the heart, of the heat, of the hearth.

I hold my medicine inside the entrance
to the ocean’s depth below where trees

Are disappointed, where earth is oppressed,
where reflection of the water seeps through.

I take all I have ever abandoned, exiled,
interrupted from the darkness inside.

I swallow the parts of my body, gulping
into the cold wet recess, the dreams

Of bound feet embroidered in gold and
orange, of thighs lost in pink blue sunset.

I welcome the grey tongues of the elders
whose earthy wombs drowned my fears.

I stifle their cries so medicine can allow
that which is not yet born, not yet met,

Not yet finished. Their cries will never
fall away. My medicine is here to lure,

To lull, then enfold them in my endless
lap. I go eager to lose my waywardness.

Queen Charlotte City, British Columbia
June 21, 1989

We have left Louise Island, ride the double-kayak, elated
in cool yellow metal. Our guide has already taught us
to paddle. Exert with the forward stroke through the air.
Then pull backward through waters— saving the effort.

Just lily dip, don’t dig deep. And we glide as if we’d done this
all along. Several bald eagles perch in shadows high in Sitka.
We expect the little ducks with red feet, white wings
to fly on our approach. Instead they dive.

We are surprised it easy to avoid ominous tangled clusters
of kelp. The years are drifting back — we are comfortable
in our silent subject. We’ve synchronized our strokes,
gaze ahead tucked snug.

We rock and bend. A slight wind invades. Our exploration
takes a nervous turn. We’ve known these waves. I, the lookout,
always, take the front. You, steady the rudder, shafts of sun—
hours roll unnoticed. Islands are to circle.

Something will not flood through, is not an issue. Yet,
we endure this speed, light on water lasting like our faith.
So, we steer around another rocky island. Two spotted goats
run after us on little brown hooves bleating, scolding,

Ringing their bells. Laughing, we push off to a tree —
filled place and pull the shiny kayak onto a beach of pebbles.
We lay upon the metal, lean upon the oar. It has been
a fulcrum then, this love.

We abandon the kayak, scramble over stone black, full
of barnacles to moss, ferns thick and good with grace
covered with yielding rust of lichen and fungi. The wood
shavings are soft. We have brought no lunch— only water.

You over me, my eyes close, and you call. Lean back, open,
and feel the day. The light refracts in cedar and spruce.
Brave needles of the sun release and fly.

We feast upon the noontime of our lives.

Scrambling over the teasel,
we entered the marsh.
Whispering to my tall sister—
I could see no hunters.
On an abandoned rusty boat,
a great blue heron perched.
My sister cautioned me to
aim my feet at the roots
of the reeds and the cattails.
We’d conspired weeks to gather tules.
In a dream, a grandmother told us
to weave a cape, first cutting, then drying,
soaking reeds in salt water,
making time together
to twist reeds into strength.
Three snowy egrets stalked
slow through the muck.
Finding a place to steady ourselves,
we lay down our buckets, cut twine,
readied our shears.
Tall as these tules, my sister is
with her hair falling down silver, gold to her waist.
She has a beautiful dark daughter her mother ignores.
I am short with black, clipped hair.
My tall slim, fair-skin daughter hardly knows my mother.
We measure twine and slice reeds
leaving two leaves at the center— the heart.
Our buckets full, we retreat,
our rubber boots sinking
into smelly brown mud.
With enough return trips,
afternoons for twining souls,
we can cover ourselves regally.
We have found another world.

San Bruno Mountain
February 2, 1995

Out of dark — fruit fallen tufts,
pale, sudden as hope, arise,
leave my slopes, serene, pure glad.

Water streams down the gorge. Lovers plunge,
feet, legs calf-high into the gurgling flow.
Next to the tangle of thimbleberry.

They steal the season, make fast love.
Then, good companions, they calm,
see the cluttered creek needing clearing.

They haul rock after rock from the course,
for anxious ambassadors of the flow.
Done, they stagger up the ever-swelling brook.

The manzanita reaches to snag a collar,
then a sleeve, a reminder of upper hand’s
lowest reach. The only change, we ever make is

Closeness to our kin. Last days spent, our arms
around a dying friend. Trees desire—a natural end.
Red flicker sings of sustenance, not doom.

The butterflies still sleep in their cocoons.

Water stretches between hills of dust, marsh of salt.
Thick kelp clusters—bobbing, swirling, drifting with
several easy ducks on this lustrous ruddy body—

Filling myself — cold, placid — a blubbery friend joins
shouting her praise of everything comes to rest
in this dark, liquid place.

She calls me to swim — center of the bay. I’m who
names things — no good words surface. Thumb
and forefinger, picking clear plastic with icy

Fringe. Naming it garbage—floating to center.
Tangling hair in debris, sensing weight in slime
under my neck. Stinking, dragging myself onto a

Muddy shore. On the other side, reaching the chill
marinade of the ocean. Hot, I plunge into rocky tide.
Teen-aged children awaiting me— shadow puppets

Decorated with bits of bird feathers— white fur.
Faces— daguerrotypes restored behind a painted
red facade.

Sunday morning— children drinking margaritas,
eating corn on cob. My friend finds us,
requests quarters for a pay phone.

Where does the dream begin— my telling end?

September 21, 1990

Mabon landscape

I abandon Her, give her no respect, take advantage of
Her every generous impulse, rob her. Yet our reunion
is as ineffable as autumn.

Four days before balance, She denies loss, holds
rigid, refuses to yield to softness of passage. She
finds traverse across placid ice, treacherous in its

Elegance. Her fists clench cold, her feet numb —
uneasy in equilibrium. Too much pulses through me.
At right, path of frozen banks — impenetrable craggy regions

At left, an aqua lake sleeps — encircled by white mountains,
its watery body — elliptical. Its sky blanketed
in bullet grey clouds bearing menace.

How can the lake persist in blue if nothing’s clear?

Silhouettes sail crude boats across waves of crystal.
She senses steps of men before her on the path.
They have reached the edge of time, well-packed snow

Piles up above a small log cabin. It juts symmetrically —
no windows. How can I breathe? No opening there, no view.
To the left, a slide descends smoothly through the ice.

Shadows whistle as they glide before the plunge.
She hesitates, then swings Her right leg up above the ledge,
opens her palms, climbs to shelter.

Aware and not aware of storm, sun
as well as lightning, wind, staying in
the backyard, defying Mother’s cries

To come inside, sensing my balance,
sturdy, as the crepe myrtle’s trunk.
Bunnies scurry across the meadow

Behind our fence. Made of dust,
of water I am. Humans are of that:
Born to live, to dance in the form

Of the spiral, on the edge of all
my grandparents’ DNA, utterly
dependent on the temperature

Outside. Rain didn’t pool
excessively, little turtle was
protected from wind by his

Shell. I returned to my little
grey house leaving shorts,
tee shirt in a substantial

Puddle. We are a web.
And every caterpillar
depends on cycles of

Climate and weather.
Our strength varies.
Sentient beings want

To live, live, live until
we die in mystery
at Gaia’s bequest.

I am connected to cavernous elixir in the mountain.
I support the springs of life for many creatures:
plants, fungi, trees, minerals, animals, birds, insects.

I am the land of the sun bearing its rays of insistence,
of generosity, of torrential rains lasting for days, even
weeks, soaking every living and non-living being.

From the depths of the springs, the wells are filled
to supply water for garden hoses used by rebel forces
to work the fire lines, to save houses again and again.

I am home for desperate pumas finding stream
or brook, drinking from the deep, asking reciprocity
from humans when lions are blood thirsty in conflagration.
Humans here are only recent visitors.

I am the land whose lions have lived in this place
forever, seeking water. I am the land of the coyotes.
Humans have made a pact with me.

They have performed ceremony on the sun, half holidays,
and on the new moon In exchange for dwelling on the edge
of my forest of chaparral. They know they are my visitors.
What they have not known is that they are mine.

They drink my aqua, collect rain for their
swimming pools. Their children give birth to
grandchildren who are thought to be theirs alone.

The birth waters flow, the babies delivered
to the care of the land as well as that of their
grandparents. My coyotes thirst for my water.

Their offspring die for lack of it. I claim them.
They are in my care now. I am the depth
where mothers’ tears will enrich the earth.

I am the deep waters in all forested mountains.
I am surface underground containing springs
of life for plants, fungi, trees, minerals, animals.

I receive sun’s rays of insistence and generosity.
I make rains for days, weeks, soaking every being,
alive or not. From depths of underground lakes,

Humans fill wells, supplying water for hoses from
rebel forces, working fire lines, saving toxic houses
from the constant fires.

I am committed to desperate pumas who, in flames,
find a stream or brook to drink from my depth, when
blood thirsty, asking for reciprocity in conflagration.

People on the mountain are only recent visitors.
I am devoted to lions who have lived here forever,
seeking my water. I am faithful to the realm where

I have seen mountain folk struggle to make a pact
with me. They performed ceremony in exchange for
dwellings on edge of my chaparral forest. They knew

They were visitors. What they have not yet known
is they are mine. They drink in my springs, collect
rain for their swimming pools. Their children gave

Birth to grandchildren, who are thought to be theirs
alone. The birth waters flow, babies are delivered to
the care of the territory, as well as the grandparents.

My coyotes thirst for the deep water. Their offspring
die for lack of it. I claim all those beings in my care.
I am the depth where their mothers’ tears at one time

Enriched the earth. The surface of the planet became
hot and inflamed so deep waters screamed to the
forest as it burned and cried out. Coyote scorched,

Raven fell out of the sky, Hummingbird melted, all the
burned and broken stood up around altars of
their elementals. Puma and Wild Boar appeared with

Their four legs soaring in the orange air. The Bears,
hungry, losing berries, stumbling, pawing in deep ash,
inhaling black nostrils, gasping omnipresent smoke.

Digging for muddy dirt with increasing despair in the
lamentable trunk of a redwood circle, Mule deer,
failed to find resin in the green fir. In silent time,
I signaled my dear ones, Nevermore.

This era when my offspring could see me bend
the arc towards a new world,
not anything like the past…

Coming around the corner
Winding down the path,
We could not see it beyond
The cushion of pine needles

Adding lilt to our footsteps nor peek
Through the burnt-out trunks
Of the redwoods reaching slowly
Imperceptibly sunwarm since the ages

Nor could we peek around the ferns,
Tall green teenagers competing with us
For air. Moist and dense as our shared earth,
Coming around the corner

Curling down the road
The wind carried the message
Our eyes could not believe
One silver veil of water falling

Like the hair of God’s own mother uncoiling
Her strands tickling the mossy rock
Spraying electricity until the mist wept
The pools below becoming filigree golden

Reflections of the self same sun
Redwoods long for before they swirl
Into the creek’s soft brown peace.