I am
a wild woman
the coyote makes its home
underneath my skin
and rekindled from below my abdomen
a snarl escapes
ignites
like wild fire

I crawl below
I break the silver twine cloak
mother moon stitched out of love
and I sever the serpent chains
that once restrained my calloused hands
once marked red with the hard etched lines
that slither on my palms like rivers filled with blood

underneath the night
poachers march through the horned wreathed arms of father tree
their whispers awaken me

I dig my hardened nails into the broken soil
I un­hinge
I rise illuminated
from the Earth's inside.

I arrive searching at a crossroads
the dense fecund flora around me whispers,

This is a labyrinthine quest

long bark fingers reach out from the shadowscapes
they hand me a stone tablet
transcribed with incomprehensible scripture
I grace my fingers over the stone
the words chime within me,

There is no prize
no obvious winners
only scathed players

the words resound
beneath the fierceness of the wind

If they speak from the soil
they murmur hidden truths

the leaves encircle themselves
in a waltz around my body
and assure me,

You cannot listen too keenly
you may imagine yourself­
a half truth
a projection
that isn't real

out of fear
I rise to the tops of the echoing wood
then fall as the ravenous roots
force me onto a cobblestone pathway
only lit
by the corvine call.

Memories

swarm in swirling swatches

like the way soft watercolor paint dances

on the edge of rough pressed paper

images bury themselves in their tunneled homes

then drip down on my hardened brown boots

I wind
down
Hecate's path
the tearing wind
carries away my clothing.

What is left of me
wavers
above me like
white sheets
in battle
with
wild wood
fire.

I peer over shadows cast
and I see the great barred owl
throned among
the horned wreathed arms of trees.

Her call dissolves
the annealed armor
around my heart
and from the kisses
She plants over my eyelids
all color and
all life
slithers away
before my sight.

The lingering light
hisses like Her serpent
as it travels below
to a place
underneath
my
self.

the wind
seductive
with fierce
sway of
winter's leave
coerced the
landscape

the sun
rose over
waking trees
as their fingers
rattled with
fruits shrunken
hard and dry

bellow
an ancient pulse
beguiled ecstatic
sound that
trembled above
in a waltz to
the whine of the
clarinet

I close
my eyes
relish
the sonorous
sounds of
Her weather
and She whispers
*it is not the moon, I tell you
it is these violas,
that illuminate the ground