Spring is arriving and receding day by day. The family of deer, our woodland neighbors, have found ways to stay warm and find food through the long weeks of icebound forestland. They laze in the sunlit meadow. Sometimes frolicking in the warmth, sometimes grazing the new greens. Wild bees buzz lazily, the squirrel comes quickly as I lay almonds in a row on the deck railing. Summer birds have begun to return and spring’s azure butterflies have reappeared at the creek.
Beauty is ephemeral and cyclic: permeating the days, present to each moment. Beauty is medicine to heal the ugliness in the headlines. Small acts of beauty defy the soul-deadening paradigm, the algorithms that chain us to despair.
Animalia
I.
She hears a small thud
against the window.
Sparrow huddles,
breath coming fast,
blinks as the woman
bends to hold her.
No flutter of wings
quieter still
inside the basket.
The woman pulls
soft flannel close
steps back inside.
II.
Forest animals
she bows to by day
return to her
under moonlight.
They inhabit her dreams
She holds a wedding
bouquet of living snakes
Bees deposit honey
into her lap
Birdsong becomes
elixir in a crystal vial
A stag with diamond antlers
stands in shallow creek water
Her house of dreams
is a living bestiary
herds, packs, flocks, schools
species, times, seasons, eons
are waves on the sea
rising, merging, rearranging
patterns of furred, finned
feathered bodies
surfacing and receding
III.
When humans stood to walk
face forward, gaze level
the underside
~ belly, womb, heart ~
were exposed
vulnerable for the first time.
Rolling over
wolves submit
with a lowered head
tail tucked
underbelly soft and visible.
The woman rounds
her body, bends low
forehead on the ground
to bow bare
before the Sacred.
IV.
One sparrow
the weight of feathers
and a heartbeat
launches into flight
from a basket rim.
From my book of poems A Litany of Wild Graces
Forward Wild Graces to a friend: There they’ll find
Nesting Circles of Belonging ~ Family, Nature and Cosmos.
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Photo by Idean Azad