Earth Chronicles: Poetry Collection

All works have been copyrighted. New poems will appear at the top of this post.

St. Pinus

Pine with clusters 2-5

Fir's soft binal milky lines

Spruce square squires, 

Sharply wired

Swords four-sided

Druid diamonds

Frisky Fir, Saggy Spruce

Cones are chanting who is who

Salt, salve, syrup, sugar

Perfume, vinegar

Liquor worship

Fascicle spirals 

Sacred cycles

Resin runes 

Balsam tune

Pine sun tea

On afternoons

Needles mend in western wind

Sutures span from soul to land

Notes: *Pine needles can form in clusters of 1-7, but most species have 2-5

** Fascicle: pine needles bundled in clusters

*** Spruce have square needles that are four-sided

Conversations with a Gnome Queen

 There are those who can read the hieroglyphs between trees. There is a She that can speak to seeds and grant long trails of weeds a floral heartbeat. There are those who can ask a plant why it was made and receive an answer through the tones and shades. There are those who can congregate with the fragrance of pines and feel delight in the company of rhamnus and thyme. Who can know the species of every leaf and find repose in glandular racemes? Who awakens the grasses and unfurls the fronds; who has a presence so fertile that all must respond? Who cares for the health of each petal and stone and knows the path of every acorn and cone? Who is unconcerned by time- long or short – and sees that each drop of dew is absorbed? There is a He that remembers the testimonies of fallen trunks and who lives for centuries in altars of moss. There are those who can feel the bodies of fountains and gardens, bark and stones… shady groves and sun-drenched slopes as if they are their own. Whose topography is diphenyl sulfone? ‘Tis the gnomes. Kings and Queens.

A gnome queen enters my dream. I enter her heart with my empathy. Here, I am sheltered and protected by weathered wisdom and embodied Mystery… It is as if my entire being is held in the shaded nook of a tree. The forest is in my bloodstream- igneous and metamorphic rock create a womb where illusion dissolves. The nervous system is a responsive lover- each touch is like the sensitive brush of sweet winds on petals. There is no sorrow or hurrying. There is She: Patiently cradling a forgotten bundle of leaves until the wind is ready to carry them on to new seasons. Her Soul is flowers unfolding, and I am but a newborn bird in her nest.

How do you Become a Gnome and know the journey of each leaf and stone? Shift your awareness into a rock. Become granite, peridot, amethyst, and Precambrian Gabbro. Feel the branches of a tree as if they are your own limbs. Make the fruit of its veins the essence of your soul. The trees that sway in the breeze are endless dancers that stir this cauldron of energy... move with them. Embrace the ages. Let go of confusion and the human need for reassurance. Imbue your cooking with a sheltered nurturing that will supply your diners with otherworldly confidence and satisfaction. Taste each moment as if it is the nectar of Eden, found in all seasons. Walk in the forest and know the plants by name. Lie vein to vein. Discern all sensations that occur from foot-soul to brain. Who among us can decipher these formulas? My advice to the woodland traveler, the stoic scholar, the fervent master: Find the Soul in each stone, plant, and mineral and contemplate this World of Mysteries.

 Sylvan Souls

 Come with me Low

To the Mosses and Loam

To lilting Brambles and Curling Vines

Caressing the feet of Cedar and Pine

Call up the flowers with me

And Unburden your Soul

Let us do what the Winds do with the Scent of Rain

And Invite floral Veins to Breathe here Again

Take your Measure of Garlic and Thyme

Set aglow by the smile in your Eyes

And Speak the Perfume of a new World into Being.

The Sumac leans close…

Closer than the stars…

Straining to hear your Verdant Whispers.

The Blooms inside you dream in colors of Champagne…

Plant your Hands firmly on their new resting Place

Now Breathe.

Let the Fragrance of your Breath take Root

Dip the tip of your mind-Pen in amethyst Hues.

Water the Earth with a Fertile Memory

Now watch.

A rosy spine uncurls;

A fern unfurls

Peppermint takes its first step

And baby Marigolds flex,

Rocking in their windy Cradles next to Sage

Cherry blushes for the first time as our lips meet…

And Juniper wiggles her Emerald feet

Willow-spun designs comes into View:

And in Sylvan folds, are me and You.

 The Old Hare

 Something familiar hops into view

I know you!

You are the Old Hare with Wise-eyes Wide open since birth

All of my hair stands up

The fringe of your fur is highlighted in tufts

Bright against its dusky backdrop

You're the symbol of new plans

Or that's what they say on Instagram

It doesn't matter how the message is sent

But standing a few degrees to your left

I feel a warm meadow opening in my heart

And tunneling deep into a cozy den

Who knew?

I could find a friend from 100 feet away

With our souls grasped and framed

In the glow of a frosty windowpane

 Note: Hares are born with their eyes open and nearly all their fur.

Inviolable

 They cannot take Nature from Me.

Not with their paper or fountain pens

Not with their Towers that pockmark the land

And make the Sky Bend Backwards

Looking for Space.

They cannot take Nature from me.

At night I talk to Flowers in my dreams

We sway gently together in the breeze

And chat about Maple while sipping Tea.

They cannot take nature from me…

Not with their suits or philosophies.

There is Wind in every breath

A little Salt in every death

A small Ocean

Hiding in the Eye-Canyons

They have tried to take Nature from me.

With their manicured nails,

Their white-collared Tales

Dressed up as Holy Grails they place on pedestals

And put on the Big Screens

But I Feel rivers in my veins,

Thunder in the strains of Voices

Chanting ancient spells with Sweet Refrains

Inside me.

It is in them too. No, really.

Currents in whisps of Hair,

Boulders in unflinching Stares.

Hurricanes in busy Minds

Waterfalls in Tired Sighs

Even the grass kisses the bottoms of their shoes,

Bruised beneath the weight of a bustling world.

They Cannot Take Nature away from me.

Just let them try…

The Clouds speak to me,

Buttoning up the sky

Yarrow tells a story

As I walk by

My thoughts are pots of roses and rue

Acorn and ash usually chime in too.

My mind rests with the vents on the Ocean Floor

Ammonites show me what came Before…

The mists Kiss me with a thousand tongues

Oak whispers that I am as Young

And old as the universe

Still stretching toward what it might Become.

So as you can see..

The forests and seas are here to Stay.

They Cannot Ever take Nature Away

Tucked Inside of Me, It Remains.

 Origins

 The valley tangles its hairy legs with mine

 19th century churchbells ringing

Soft psalms over the summer evening

My mind is an Appalachian giant

Striding up windy chimneys like a Swift with its wings spread

And pecking at the blue-blush cheeks of the Tennessee dells

I find a piece of pottery stuck on the mouth of an eastern ridge

I soar for a few minutes, an early human again

Painting bison friends on the walls next to our handprints

I feel Sistine, fingers Ochre-deep in memories

Of when chapels grew from the caves

And altars from our hunting journeys

I feel as Strong as the First Woman*

Who had Grain carved into Her bones, and the First Man,

When He found the stone that put warmer homes in his hands

But then again…what do I know

Tonight, I am a just a House Wren resting in my grassy hotel

With the mountains sprouting against the sky like broken eggshells

*Note: Prehistoric women had stronger arms than present day athletes, per scientists who compared their bones to those of modern day rowing teams. Anthropologists believe a big reason for this was that women from the Stone Age spend large amounts of time grinding grain manually for hours every day

 One Sun

 There are times when I need to unplug

And just have a chat with familiar friends

So I tune into echoes I hear

In the backbones of shale and limestone

A glass sponge greets me first,

Pouring itself into my hand’s Chalice

And clinking against the rim

Of a dried-up ocean

I trace the spine of a bryozoan

And think about how it scoffed at England

And built a new colony on the edge of Delaware

We sip that tea together for a minute

A Waagenoceras* uses its sutures

To stitch a few more legs into my head

Then it puts me in one of its saddles*

And carries me across the Permian

A few lamp shells flutter their fans

And I try to feel lonely standing next to greensand (I can't)

His salt and pepper beard

Make me think of grandad

I try to feel small

Then I brush the dirt off a Smilodon's cheeks

And I purr when I find the bison

Still stuck in its teeth

I nearly dance when distant cousins

Send a swampy postcard from the Pennsylvanian

I slip a little bit of their coal into my stocking

(Just for safe-keeping)

Sometimes when I see the amber I cry...

It's yellow-gold tones hit a bit too close to home...

And I just end up holding today's hives close to my heart

And hoping they'll never feel the sting of the next great Vanishing

But mostly I hold old domed Huts in my Hands

Marvel at the chance that we've lived under One sun

And unfolded our past lives

Under the same thatched roof of night and day

*Waagenoceras was a cephalopod of the Lower (earlier) Permian. The suture patterns on the fossils are very dynamic and *saddles are points on the wave of the suture that contrast with the lobes.

Evergreen

 An evergreen takes me under its wing

Casting Her needles around my shoulders

Sewing me to the land

She sorts through crunchy Leaves

Skating around musing Lakes

Patting my face gently and weeding my Thoughts

She finds a few chickadees hibernating there

A little Frosty

But content in their beds.

She sings them back to sleep

Crooning through a Satiny web

Still wet with dew

She wants to know where my Home is

With my nose in her neck

Breathing in the Scent of a Forgotten World

Porcupine brushes against our feet

Grinning like a ghost who knows

That even Winter sheds His sharp quills in the presence of our Love.

Aphrodite Among the Apple Blossoms

Sometimes my legs brush against the gentle sway

Of the apple blossom saplings

Sweeping Hera and Athena out of the way*

I stop to look through some flushed lenses

And think I can see Paris

When it was still innocent and green

I am Aphrodite, part of a budding sea

Because the blossoms have become a part of me

Replacing the war in my heart with an orchard of beauty

 *Note: In Greek mythology Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all tried to claim the golden apple of beauty. Paris of Troy was tasked with choosing between the three of them. He chose Aphrodite because she promised him Helen of Troy… Because Helen was already married to a king, this eventually caused the Trojan War.

The Tree Who Dreamt the Land

 Islandic, Icelandic,

The world sails to me

On season-ships and light scripts

Like Children to parents

It is the natural way

And a Moment I cradle

Birthing new dendrites and stems

Like babes and petals

The Great Blooming

Has sprouted in my Heart

Like a wing in the air sphere

A birthright, unfurling itself

I name this moment “Water”

As it pours from the sky.

Something golden germinates

And with root and Frond, arises.

The essence of this moment.

Is an eternity.

I can wait… sleep… dream…

There is no difference to me

I have banked on the shores

Of a memory

Volcanic and subterranean,

Strides as wide apart as milleniums.

To cross-pollinate

There is a dance, a shifting…

Opposites shuffling hips and lifetimes

Until their rose-love drifts across the skyline.

Orion does not yet know

The sapphire blush of his Pleiadian beau

Stellar nurseries are still forming

The spines that will tell stories

Time is an object of mere affection

Uncurling like spirals

Elders, serving elixirs

Drunk by bodies far beyond.

And from whence I came?

I am the offspring of imagination

When the earth hungered for heaven

And fed it a tendril like incense

Or perhaps that is backwards…

Creation set its gaze

Beyond the horizon of the celestial

And built a bed of pine needles therein.

With crown and root

Thorn and bush

I bridge dimensions

And note the courses taken

With venous archways

My xylem and flowing gateways

Grant passages like Lifeblood

And coniferous dreamfruits

My heart is a verdant pathway

Merging visceral and empyrean planes

Running parallel to two worlds

And ever in between. 

 Rings

Today I watched rings

Fall off the fingers of the Pine trees

The Cutters said they were just “pruning”

And not ruining a thousand years of journeys

Or turning their pockets green

I looked at rings gleaming on their own hands

Probably worth thousands collectively

And sawed them off at the knuckles with my eyes

Razor sharp, immune to their anguished cries

Just doing my job with a machine

*Druids do not advocate for violence. This is a commentary on what we are doing to the trees in our time and how rote it has become to destroy the planet.

Cabins in Concrete

 Right now you're stuck in a concrete pen

With a rolling chair

And phone calls for wardens

I can help you imagine

A different plane

That we can hop on (first class) to escape

Let's build a cabin in the woods

And be holy together… wholly together!

Bodies steepling under the patched quilts of our sweet whisperings.

There are plenty of sheep begging to be counted near this countryside cabin

Plenty in your thoughts too

Trying to dream, but you won’t let them.

Let’s iron out your wrinkled brow in the corner of the cornfield

And cut the cords always ringing at you when we’re playing in the Woods

Clad in suit coats, but Barefoot.

 Stewards

(A Poem for Wayward Holocene Children)

When we no longer listen

In shades of velvet green

And Terra is Uprooted

To line the plastic streets

When clouds no longer billow

With sun upon their heads

When the owl and the otter

Cannot find a bed

Hydrangea and Myrtle

Shed their floral wreaths

The Mammoth and the rhino

Are slaughtered and extinct

When earthen lives go belly up

When forests slip away

Who gives God the failed report

And tends the silent graves?

Fibonacci

 And what an ordinary day it was

To ascend the black and blue shaded limbs of salted cervix

Onto the beach for the first time.

A marvel that the ocean didn't blink when she vomited

The small rib crawling through the soil

With skin for lungs

Slick nylons skating up

The dimpled thigh of soft earth

Past the fragile hairs standing on end

Mother aware of the follicular sway

Of her own ovaries of course

Because how else would she know when to push?

Slapping away god's hand

Sprouting legs in her own time

Her children's bodies becoming blessed with eyes

And all so it could happen again

With an extra pinch of cinnamon meteors

And then opposable thumbs

Forgetting to apologize to the angels

Who couldn't discern which early image

The erect forms were made in, since they were promised only One

And all just so you could rip off a piece of the whole parchment

Only 8,000 years long and taped next to the dinosaurs

Who would have had it easier, perhaps, without the weight of their feathers

Made more bold by the soft flesh

Of bipedal shepherds

Without the crushing velvet of a heavy curtain

Rising above a foreign place

With families spread out like grass blades

Not into a single layer of meringue strata

All so your vision could learn to follow

The things that move quickly

But only one thing at a time

And just so you could kneel in the dirt

Gaze tilted upwards, searching for a reason

Hovering above the mammoth you speared

And that above

The lowly throat of a weed

And that above an arrogant ant ignoring all business but its own

Just so you could end up at Home Depot

In the name of the broken faucet attached to the kitchen sink

Attached to the day assigned too few hours

Because the world spun slower

As your Copernican mind bled on the sands

And because your stone tools became something more

Recalling the worlds they fell from

Rich with the same minerals

Lent to your brittle bones

But don't you remember, darling,

When you were enough to rise up the mountain

Between your mother's belly and spine?

 Leafy Library

 Sometimes my mind is dazed

My eyes a blurry haze

My pen quibbles at the page

And I can't find a language I'm well-versed in.

I know then that it's time to withdraw for the day

And take a walk among the Aspens

There, I can unstiffen

Really listen

To the lexicons screaming my name

No dogeared faces

No steel-beamed places

No penciled traces

Of famous works staining my thoughts

After I've exhausted the search engines

Looking for the right synonyms

Sifting dictionaries through rigors of meter and rhythm

I finally give in....

I open up to that leafy library

That rests next to a creek

With clever words for arms

And mossy tomes for feet.

 The Moment

 Listen when it speaks to you through the cracks in the sidewalk

Thrusting its chest out and making its existence known

Listen when you’re standing in the kitchen and the onions in the pan snap and pop

Arching their spines toward you

Listen when Summer curls around your legs

Purring and licking at creamy periwinkle twilights

Listen when it is winter and you’re warm in bed eating waffles

Sticky with syrup

The sap tickling your blood with Mapled lullabies and frosted runes

Listen when the old ghosts snatch the evening right out of your hands

And incline on the pillow making eyes at the spaces between your fingers

Listen when the blossoms appear in dazzling recitals

The Mint and Jasmine shaking their hips, holding space for Poppy’s arrival

Listen when your thoughts connect the dots

Between the trails the stars blazed

And name the tidal waves poking holes in the morning hours

Mewling like the cries of a healthy Babe

Listen when your joints creak, and age creeps

Its weathered arms around you

Knitting its body around your neck warmly like a scarf.

Listen when the Corn and Cotton

Teach you the parables braided through their past lives

With histories lying quietly next to your own

Listen to the Lore in the carpeted floor

Of your 4x4 lawn in the heart of the city

Reaching its fingers toward the front door and tapping lightly on the sill.

Listen.

The Moment stands before you, leaning against the picket fence

Peeling an apple to its core

And passing the juicy pieces to your clenched fists.