A crunching frost last evening in the highlands,
the lambent moon high above the trees,
an embracing darkness and the
aurora borealis dancing over the hill.
November stillness flowing like a shadow
down the trail below the oak trees at twilight.

Winter stirs among these short days,
whispering of cold moons to come,
the rattling dry breath of the long nights,
like these old bones that move creaking
through the brown grass, dead leaves and fallen twigs

Patterns everywhere, and not of my making,
but the Old Wild Mother's weaving,
marbled stones, hoary branches, mottled leaves,
prints of wolf and deer along the trail,
puddles deep in the wooded hollows rimed with ice,
shreds of tattered birch bark blowing free.

There are ghost scents on the wind this evening,
of fresh turned earth and summer fields,
There are echoes of the wild geese going south,
the old rail fence creaking when I leaned on it at dusk in June.
If I listen, I can hear the stream moving away in the gorge.

"Rest now sister," it tells me in its hollow voice.
"Rest you now, for all things turn in time, and we,
like the seasons, must await the time of our tuning."

Go out to the rainy woods, leaving
the tired eidolons of the spirit and your
wayward thoughts at home in the warm.
Bring only your camera and notebook,
yourself, if indeed a self you have or are.
Leave that self somewhere among the
earthy wetness and the old trees.

Sit quietly with these drenched leaves,
these birds, that flowing stream and
wait for them to speak or sing in this green
and wordless language that you share.
Know that there are atomies vast and
teeming with life in everything you see.

Return home at the end of the day,
as a leaf yourself, a stone perhaps, a star.

At dawn, a frail moon waning up there
somewhere in the unseen blue, blesses
a perfect summer day that will surely
never come again to sing, and slow

walkers in the early fog, we go together
paw and paw through summer yieldings
of sweet purple clover and rhyming
cricket, of humming bee and dancing leaf

while all around us, unseen but deeply
felt and loved, the world is breathing
in and out, our three voices falling
into seamless light and tune and time.

(Me)

evening stillness—
the waning light held captive
high in guardian trees

the shallow leaf-rimed pool
reflects my withered face as
I splash booted homeward

above my silvered head—
robins in the smoky dusk
are trilling for rain