again boomslang swims the high branches among a flutter of small birds and heron slowly measures the sky before the salt mist rushes the valley and the night sings of rain
if the sun had not risen if the rain had not fallen if loerie had not sat perfect green on the archway waiting for us to pay attention. if it had not rained more misting the ocean on the way down the hill if the air had not pulsed warm rich with rain and ocean…
beyond reach of the noise of the rushing world and endless talk of the weather bracket fungus still glows on moss thick trunks amongst sway of branch and drip of leaf.
went out mid shower in the almost dark to shape the flow of water harvested road-side along channels to fill a series of ponds. it had been raining solidly all day. i had not intended to be out long, just enough to check water levels and hear the sounds of night, full with running water…
if i were to slip sideways between trees between worlds, blur my edges until my skin turns scale and bark and hide – it would be a soft rain, mud morning like this; with a dawn chorus of frogs pulsing cell membranes, jubilant, tympanic. and as the sun climbs the clouded sky cicadas will while…
the ocean has come to find me under this starless sky. i wait breathless as the trees in this salt mist, hoping the night brings rain.
on the long road home low light etches verge grass in amber while hills roll long-shadowed and lazy under an ocean of high mist. for a moment in passing the roadside tree stands ablaze as the forest buzzard, feathers aflame with evening, alights on arced wings dips her haloed head and folds into form.
And if it be we come to this far shore empty and alone, let it be love that called us- and love that brings us home.
if it must be that we break a thousand times to this broken world – let it be this sky, this river, this deep gulp forest breath that breaks us open to the impossible beauty that lives this world too.
like petals to the sun we open to this living because we are here now because life asks the living to live because this morning roused us from our broken sleep, sang us jubilant as the stars faded and our bones hummed with new light dappled on the forest floor.