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.