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ecology
within you
within me
are the vast plains
and sacred mountains,
the eternity of stars,
the dark flowing waters
that carry drifting petals
on a reflected sky
to the sea.within you
within me
is every thought
and memory
ever spoken or sung,
or clicked antennae
between reaching
blades of grass
in summer.within you
within me
is the breath of the world
inhaled and shared
since the first pulse of light
called us
into being.
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source
Flower mandala by Steven Hurt it is not rain alone
that fills the well.
beneath our feet
sweet water pools
in the darkness
of our unknowing,
waiting for us
to name our thirst. -
celebrant
daughters of the moon,
daughters of the hills,
daughters of our grandmother’s
grandmother’s grandmothers,
it is too long
we have dwelled
in the house of men
fearing our power
would scare them,
letting our power scare us.
daughters of the earth,
love would never ask you
to be less than you are,
and if that is what’s being asked
then it is not love.
cast it off
like a garment
like a corset
like a skin
until all that is not you returns to dust
and you the living stand alive
on the river’s edge
pulsing with the perfect light you are
and have been
since before the trees were named
and the river tasted the sea.daughters of blood and stars,
when love comes
as love will,
approach it as the temple it is.
time has waited for this perfect now,
crow and shout and dance on the hilltops –
in the moonlight,
in the rain,
on the shore of tomorrow
that only you have seen.
be celebrant and celebrated –
let the hard worn dust
of the temple floor
remember your name.
Image by Steven Hurt -
novitiate
if it must be
that dreams will follow,
traipse home with us
from that other world,
then let them be
this sweet awakening
to mist plumes that sigh
the birded valley
at dawn. -
to the new owners of leopard ridge
it is easy to dismiss
the voice in us
that says this can’t be right
or just or true
when the woman herself
is without voice,
when the land lies silenced
where the forest once lived,
when the child never learned
her voice would be heard,
when this body of earth and blood
has been violated and she cannot
remember her worth
and her rivers bleed into the sea.because we never learned to listen,
because we never had to ask permission,
because the bodies of women and children
are still owned and bought and sold.
it is easy to forget we can’t own the earth
when our laws protect our right to own land –
but do nothing to stop us abusing it. -
worth
how do we measure
the light
that pools perfect
in the curve of a petal
opening surely
to the sun.how do we measure
the love
held in the heart
of the turtle dove
calling her longing
to the night.how do we measure
the worth
of breath held words,
shared
and shaped
into love. -
walking the deerpath
there is no following
where this path might lead,
no heedings of warnings or calls,
there is only this earth
soft worn between undergrowth,
thorn snarled and aching
with the beauty of small leaves
that touch the light
just out of reach.and when we break
to this beauty, as break we must.
let it be this bird
sentinel on a tall tree
that sings us whole
to the evening.
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what has been kept from the world
there is damp life
beneath our knees
that are relearning
the prayers our bodies knew
before we forgot what it was
to be spoken by the land –
elbows, wrists and
palms to the earth,
ear to the ground
listening
for the songs of love
that those before us
and before us
and before us
had sung-
damp knees and
palms to the earth.
Multimedia collage by Steven Hurt -
other inevitabilities
sometimes death comes
to walk among the living
among the sure-footed
and the upright
and the young.
there is no looking away.
pretending not to notice
the slowing step,
the quiet rasp of breath –
for death has come
to walk among the living
and he never leaves alone. -
speak
if we are not here,
bodies of dust and clay,
to declare this love
under a fast fading sky –
then why, my love,
are we here
at all.