From: Sacred Life - Fall Reflections - 2013

Fall Reflections – 2013

 

Eclipse

 

It is a genuine feeling, to let go of the old prejudice of dying

 

And those things that come with the shifting moons

 

I can remember, the warming balm as water and dust thrown together

 

The mercury rising, fading

 

Yellowjackets on crusty lunchroom boxes

 

They were angry at dying, someone said to me, angry at dying

 

It meant, to me, it meant an all-eclipsing dryness

 

I would listen at night hoping to stave off the katydids, as they signaled to me the end of things

 

I dreaded that first red turning of the forest walls

 

The freezing ground of morning, the cold rides in the tiny truck that smelled of carbon and firewood

 

The daily worry of a young man not grown and fearful he will never be

 

The uncertainty of seasons  - I wanted things to live, forever, in a straight line

 

In September we would ride the horses across the mountain to the old cemetery, and I would

 

Touch the birth-swelled pods on the edge of the field to feel the insect pop of the seed on my fingertips

 

I step over the graves and pray to them; they are timeless things I have always seen

 

I lead the horses around them and they crop the still green grasses and think of nothing, their eyes a bright stillness late summer hides vibrating with insects, veins under muscle, all feeling the shift of moons

 

I watch their chins for the first whiskers of cold, the yellow eggs of botflys, and other signs that life will grow

 

Again  - In time, I could see that life’s circle was the only true thing, and within it there is no end

 

The red inside the leaves is always there

 

The yellowjackets will sleep deep in the earth, all of one mind and body

 

Their death is only the shedding of old skin  - There is a peace in the dark insectless nights

 

In the cold of the moon, tangled in naked fingers, held in false light and waking

 

And sad that it will come again, all things eclipsed at evening, uncertain, eternal

 

All things moving in endless articulation, peripheral encounters overlapping in widening circles forever.

 

 

Becoming

 

It is a genuine feeling To let go of the old prejudice of dying And those things that come with the shifting

 

Moons I whisper in slow circles in the water I chew the ends of old baling twine I move in the weeds as

 

The bend of stalks Slowly, slowly I take form, growing larger Feeding I can see inside the world I

 

Emerge, knowing the way There is no stillness like mine No time I crack and slide, moving with the ways

 

And ways I can see inside the world I am becoming I give up my life, it is not mine I break apart, dryness,

 

All eclipsing, eternal forever.