Spring Heart

Spring around the corner
Spreading all it’s heartfelt warmth
Reminds me of your touched embrace
Glowing readily, evermore.
It reminds me of a melting snowdrift
One drop at a time
Collecting a little puddle of water
Soon to be overflowing
Slowly trickling down
Small valleys that gather more,
Filling up so quickly
Like the coming season nearer
And my heart when you are here.

Source (day 3018)

I followed down the mighty river
To the end of its beginning
Here a source so small and feeble
Trickled on and away
Growing from amidst the ferns
To valleys and gulleys below
I hiked here to find my peace
Instead I found a source
And here I’ll sit and watch it begin
To rest my mind a minute.

Joy of Life (day 2827)

What windows open up my mind
To whom I speak so soft?
What vision is, I cannot say..
For laughter washes all
Into a valley of design,
Making each symbol remain the same.
Seeds of which photosynthesize,
Cracks amidst the soil,
Teeth so eagerly chattering,
Rain so vibrantly,
Gaia, she knows all secret things
Our eyes are not our only sense
Oh Joy! Oh Life!
Cometh my way.

The Nature in You (day 2776)

I would like to get to know you more
Inspecting wild flowers on a bright day
Hold hands with future’s memories
Learn your every ray
From seaside to mountain top,
I’d like to get to know you more.
I’d like to see the stars in your eyes
And the clouds upon your brow
Wake each morning to your sunshine
And fall asleep each night to your moon.
I’d like to learn what you understand
Get lost in your dreamy swoon,
See the dragons in your breath
I would like to get to know you more.
I’d like to learn what you would say
When I could learn to communicate
What storm was on my mind,
There I might find your embrace
That took me into a deep swell
Comforting my inner sea
Where I could learn how you fit to me
Every valley, every mountain,
Every you that shared with me
I would like to get to know you more.

Those Trees (day 2524)

What trees came out of here?
What harm has been done before
How could we have ever saved you
Ten thousand miles away?
Chainsaws and axes thrown
Into your hearts of gold
Good soil twisted off again
Broken away and shipped beyond
Pretending another way.

Darkness returns in your future’s growth
Overstory large and bark
Grabbing at a curious mind
Peaks and valleys roughening
Softening along the floor
Moss returns again.

Shall She Stay (day 2473)

I want to live into a better one
Where you don’t understand me
And my fear amounts to nothing
Since I’ve begun to leave droplets
Along the paths I take
With hopes that a sweet Angel
Will find her way to me
Where I’ve stopped dreaming
That my illusions will ever depart
Fog amidst the valley below
Where midday sun finds escape
Sweet Angel, shall she stay?

Spruce Story (day 2247)

The old spruce and I sat silently
We shared secrets unspoken
We shared ground softly packed
I looked up and counted to one hundred
Each branch I gave a name
Each name remembered its origin
In the world of seven valleys
I heard ravens nesting
Squirrels chasing
And I felt each limb slowly shake
Watching each needle slowly fall
Tumbling to the palm of my hand
Which rebirthed my blessings
In each moment of doubt
Until I stood where the spruce had stood
And I inhaled deeply as the spruce had inhaled
And I listened as the spruce had listened
And I swayed as the spruce had swayed
Until the seven valleys became my valleys
And my story remained so.

Eroding (day 2050)

Loveless and love loss
The nature of a sulk’n heart
Band around my middle name
Forever leaving marks

River runs through every rock
Stepping off the dock
Eroding goes away my time
Raven watches mine

Truth displayed upon deep bark
Mountain high, valley low
Scratching at my back
Needles upon our heavy ground

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXXI (day 2015)

(part XXXX)

I know that Frank appreciated having us there
To help him chop wood
He wasn’t prepared for so much help
So we only had two splitting axes
But everybody managed to stay busy
Stacking and carrying and loading and unloading.

On the second day at their place
We could feel a great rumbling
And knew it could only be the buffalo stampeding
So we immediately made our way
Out of their valley
And in to the next
Where there was a migratory path
The buffalo would always take
We sat atop the crest of the valley
Just watching them there
Thousands, movement as far as the eye could see
What a beautiful thing to behold
Frank was happy to have sure food all winter.

We only took down two buffalo
That was all the meat that Frank needed
It wasn’t smart for us to carry on our backs
Meat from this far away to our own village
We let Tall Pine and Moon Cow pull the bow
For it was clear they mourned not being able
To have their buffalo run this year
It was beautiful to watch them ride
Frank’s stud, bareback
Into the buffalo, fearlessly.

Tall Pine got the first one
Which landed with a thud and a big pile of dust
He then hurried back to us
Jumped off and before the dust settled
Moon Cow was off with a hoot
To get the wind in his hair again
I could see him smiling even from where I sat
As he wove his way into the herd
Bow cocked and sighted:
Thud… dust.

With four of us dressing the buffalo
We had them quickly on a sled
Being pulled by the horse
And were on our way back to the house
Excited to celebrate the luck
Frank knew better then to offer us his moonshine
But he had plenty of tea
Amy made us the most delicious bread
And we had a mighty feast of it
Afterwards all of us had to undo
Our belt buckles
So we could sit comfortably around the fire
Clarinet included!
It was nice to be with such kind people
And to have helped them such.

part XXXXII

Moon at Midnight – Part XXX (day 2004)

(part XXIX)

Willow knew how to throw up the teepee
But I quickly learned how, too,
It was my first time
But with Willow and Moon Cow giving orders
It went up easily
We set up Moon Cow’s close by ours
And slowly we became acquainted with our new home
For the summer, anyways,
For now it was our home.

When we first stopped
And made our home here
Mountain Chief had sent out scouts
In every direction
To make sure that we were indeed
Not going to be easily found
Every second day new scouts
Would relieve the old scouts
And so it went for the first while
Without any event to note of.

We learned that in the two valleys to the North
About a 4 hour horseback ride
There was a small family settlement
Mountain Chief asked me if I would go
And introduce myself to them
So that they would know we meant peace
But also to see if they were friendlies
To see if they were friendly to Natives.

When I arrived at their house
I wasn’t expecting what I found
Truth be told, I didn’t know what I was expecting
But at any rate
What I found really didn’t seem normal
She was deaf and he was blind
They had a dog with three legs
And a son, well more a man they called boy,
That was a good two feet taller then both of them
And to my untrained eye,
Didn’t look a lick like either one of them
They all seemed happy enough though
And I got along just nice with them.

Her name was Sara
And it turned out that her hearing
Wasn’t as bad as one first thought
And what she lacked in hearing
She made up for in a delicious soup
His name was Bill, and he was an old miner
He had come West to the hills to find gold
And I didn’t ask if he had found it
But he did tell me he found Sara
And knew he had found what he came for
Sara had already had the son
By another miner who had taken her
One night while visiting the saloon in town
The young man’s name was Johnny,
Who they both called Johnny-boy
And just watching his hands work an axe
For firewood to get ol’ Sara’s stove roaring
One could see he was as gentle as a pillow
But as strong as an ox
Bill told me he went blind from drinking too much moonshine
And that was the last time
He touched the: “Gat-dang stuff. Pardon my French, little lady.”

part XXXI