The growth of the Willows correspond
to the increased loudness of their rustling
reaching for the Sun
while the winds ruffle their leaves
waving to the Universe with spindly boughs
massed together like an impenetrable jungle.
How those thin and shaky trees survive winter
the battering wind and chill factor, is amazing.

photographs of past lives stare out from the wall
vacant moments, smiles long past
an arm around an old friend, dead years back,
picture of a saint who holds my heart in her eyes
black and white family group of three, I never met
drawings my young niece has sent in the post
and pictures of just about eclectic as can be
all break up the orange and lemon painted walls
the ones I painted five years ago, five years
these walls have held back the world from entering
kept me safe from the winter storms, and will do so again.

I am Nature I do nurture you all,
To dandle you in love ever I call.
I am mother I hold you in my lap,
I am teacher I teach you see map.

Gap you do not bring among you,
New path I show you walk in dew.
All of you are my children I love,
You are brothers, dear I do glove.

Coming in cycle of birth you fall,
Fondling you I hold up, you tall.
Wall of love shines you all stand,
My lap is bed of affection is land.

Green scene you do see is my veil,
I give crop and fruits as foods sail.
To know God I teach you to sing,
To fly to him you feel mind wing.

You come on wear wisdom as cap,
In my lap resting you dream, nap.
I am Nature I do nurture you all,
To dandle you in love ever I call.

Thunder echoes.  
Flashes through billions
Of hailstones smashing against
Trees, leaving clouds of

Crushed leaves hanging, slowly
Blending into the chaos of
Angry weather, then: Nothing.
I worry for my windows,

Pounded with ice and shaking
From relentless thunder.
Nature, now, is an angry
Woman,

Child, heirloom or love stolen.
Furious fire, skies dark with a
Thousand wings.
Drop your swords and run,

Men. Your homes are in
Flames. Your armours as
Useless as your wet pairs of
Long johns.

Toiling engines of tractors
rattle and rumble
trailers full off to the markets
a time of harvest
sheep shearing
late into the August nights
Brendan is hard at it
managing the surrounding acres
And Donal is over from Ireland
to give a helping hand
a blessing and a curse
Brendan works harder when Donal is around
This is a cusp almost full born
soon the world here
will tip into autumn
all the cattle will be bedded in the cow sheds
and we will not see them until next spring.

not that long ago
when in the prairie I found you willing
I recall the stars aligning
the moon smiling the trees
bathing us in soft leaf murmuring
the forces of nature all watching
feeling you as the day shined over the horizon
holding me
me still
in you as the new day
her glow
showed you in glory
my eyes took every ray in
every sound
the touch of dew on our nature
the crows and crocuses calling
our joy to the world.

when you're born a girl.
But don't feel like one.
When you are forced to go swimming and expose your body.
The one that causes all the pain and dysphoria.
Oh how much it ***** having boys staring at your *****.
When you want to be one of them.

Un-relentlessly beaconing to us with the ebb and flow of passing time,
Lake Winnipeg crashed against her rocky shoreline.
Creating harmonious ambiance for the star struck budding lovers lost in each others eyes.
Oh contingency, lock your hands with fate.
Make this moment surpass even time.

My time machine whirled and stuttered
as I set my course for yesterday
in quest of the ultimate key.

Swooping down to the hour of my birth
I gazed through the glass at Wyandotte General
where mother’s exhausted smile
eased my empathetic dread.

     The long journey had begun.

Steering back in time
I soared across the Atlantic -
high above the tall ships
bearing my ancestors  
to their adopted destinies.

      An immense leap to be sure,
      but the minutest turn of the wheel.

I wondered how my people
had evaded the claws
of Europe’s wretched plagues
and homicidal pretenders
brandishing swords and chalices.

I watched with sorrow as
empires flourished and collapsed.
The hypnotic rhythm
of first and final breaths
wearied my soul.

The breath of prophets
drifted over hills and rivers,
past fields, flocks and shepherds.

      But there was still
      no glimpse of a beginning.

My forebears' footfalls led me back
to the tangles of tropical Africa
to hear our initial words
spoken in a course and faltering tongue.

In wonder, I witnessed
our first cautious bipedal steps
10,000 generations ago
by the light of new found fires
dotting the evening campgrounds.

      I slipped my vessel back in gear
      and fed it some fuel;
      for I still had eons to go.

I circled over bands of ancient cousins
foraging woods and glades -
fur - covered on all fours:
eyes scouring the earthscape
in search of higher paths.

I waited patiently on the beach
as waves lapped the shore.
for mega-great grandmother
to crawl from the sea
and drink oxygen fresh from the sky.

      Though she was first on land
      my destination was not yet in sight.

My craft passed beneath clouds
over vast and restless waters
where countless ocean denizens
fed and multiplied.

The numbers of species diminished
with each millennium traveled -
bringing me closer to the source.
and the sea became a lonelier
and more desolate expanse.

DNA strands shortened.
our precursors losing
organs and motility.
Minute sea creatures,
buffeted by the shifting currents,
had but a few cells

and then -

one.

      Three and a half billion years from home,
      I waited silently at the threshold.

Hovering over the turbulence
of an oceanic storm
buffeted by cyclonic gusts,
I peered into the darkness.
a sudden flash broke the surface
and a cluster of amino acids
began to assemble, shook and divided.

The tingling beneath my skin
told me I had come home
to my primordial self,
rocking gently
in the dark fertile folds
of the vast and inscrutable sea.

*August, 2007

Nature’s fine composition
Music that is so closer to the heart
Humming along with nonchalance
Swaying branches join the harmony
Winds dance to the timeless rhythm
Silent echoes from the mountains
Calling out to solitary souls
Solitude is an eternal bliss
When one is in tune with nature

Mother Nature
that wise woman
threw a storm the other day.

It nearly took out Florida
with its raging rains and
tempestous winds.

She's been a bit tempermental of late,
what with the radiation pouring out of Japan,
the plastic clogging the Northern Gyre.

Coral reefs dying off are really
rocking her boat.  The rising carbon dioxide's making her itchy,
just look at how she's growing that poison ivy now.

Monarchs are starving.
Bats are dying off with the sniffles.
She's **** near had enough.

Makes me tremble in my boots,
just thinking what she is truly capable of
if she decides enough IS enough....