looking forward
to being nobody again
i am looking forward to being nobody again, sitting on a hill, beneath the aspens. a mother, at most, a whisper, at least. a soft footpath between sage and spruce and snow.
winter is coming; i can see it in the leaves and the slant of sun, the way the cool settles around our bed at night.
i am looking forward to being nobody again, sitting on the hill, in silence. listening, listening, listening; inner, outer, secret.
something dwells here in this forest. somethings perhaps. many many unseens. i hear them in the cottonwood leaves and in the trickling springs. they are happy this little family remembers how to sit as nobodies, quietly listening. sometimes singing, sometimes laughing.
those ones, in the forest, in the sky and earth, “turning sideways into the light”, so to speak, are happy we humans here remember them and include them in our goings-on. Long Time have they waited for us. not us as “i”’s, but us as “we”, quiet on the inside, listening for them to speak.
a poem thunder, speaks filled, full of rain, water floods the lodge. sage and coal and stone - where are we? our feet carved soft the uncarved clay of this wet earth
before the arrival of the elders, a woman came here to meet the guardian of this place. she saw a great weaver, a woman in the stars, weaving threads of light, happy to see us remembering our place among Creation. she gave us instructions. we listened.
before the arrival of the elders, i was somebody, running a great furry all over the heaven and earth to gather goodness for the center of our hearth, here. the whole community pitched in. pots and pans, knives, squash, watermelon, tarps.
they say the song of a whale can be heard in outer space.
a poem i can hear his drum, here his drum and here, his incense burning. primal people primordially pure cross the river, innocence recovered truth in the center, uncovered. see?
i am looking forward to being nobody again, quietly tucked in the twinkling starlit snow and ice.
it is not easy living like this, but when i went to the river, i realized, what else is there?
sit or stand, lay down. cook, eat, clean. sing and gather. make fires in the winter to spook the ghosts and rest with your loved ones. walk many miles. leave an offering. watch the seasons change again.
what else is there?
a poem when we breathe, season's spinning breath, we breathe snow and ice, autumn's hallowed leaf, we become thunder beings, we become the trickling spring we dance the Deity, douse uncertainty, catapult creative grief and seed the new beneath the snow -- where, in truth did we go?
belly breathing. thunder ignites the seeds of rebirth. thunder over water. thunder over earth.
