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.