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…