I can imagine

myself as a midwife or a medicine woman—
waking early
               wandering
the wooddesertmountain
with bad-*** boots & a patchy coat, pockets filled with rosemary and crystals
driving an old truck that smells of rolled cigarettes and gasoline
drinking hot tea out of a mason jar.

i see all of this & I wonder where this image will land me.
   Portland in the fall?
Nevada in the Winter?
                              Colorado? Montana?
But I need the trees.
My power is in the mountains.
Or maybe it is in the moon—and her face isn’t bound to the side of the mountain

i need the howl of coyotes, the smell of pine, the sound of running water over rocks, cold air, wind.
i crave this to the center of my
bones.

i want to dance with fire women, sing air songs, pray to the earth, bathe in the water, and
speak with the
spirit mother & the red father that binds all of these together in a chaotic harmony i will never understand.

i need to paint my body with the stain of poke berry and

run, foot against stone, against decaying leaves.

there is a savage within me
that needs to run free

that needs to bark at the moon and breathe clean air.