It's winter now

                                Finally

I can tell by the presence
of two avocado trees
and a bevy of succulents, grasses, and weeds,
bamboos and air plants and dried-up leaves,
a snake plant thats also called mother-in-law tongue, one night blooming cereus, pencil plants, ginger, all potted and stacked.

She calls it "The Winter Jungle," and its my favorite time of year.

The already cluttered and cobwebbed chaos of crystals and minerals and Hodge podge is enshrouded inside lush green,
Jumbled and crowded.
The air is heavy, hot, and dry.
She'll turn on the shower, full heat,
to steam up the sky and the illusion is complete.
In clouds, the jungle blooms.
Its snakeskins and skulls and tapestries weave
a hypnotic pattern.
There is life here,
and death.
Her miniature tiger skulks lazily through,
while his pantheresque sister lays quietly.
A chow mix hound off in her mahogany cave atop a lanolin cushion, sits sentry.
Butterflies adorn the walls with beetles and moths,
paintings of wild women and valleys, of deities and dangerous deserts,
and soft simple illustrations
of various things,
bones and feathers and coins and dreams.

And feathered dream catchers have done their work it seems,
for I, like the great hairy ape,
sitting, quietly,
surveying from above,
cannot shake the uncanny feeling of love.

This atmosphere is enough to enamor, but the woman whose presence the the atmosphere holds
                                             is shamanic,
a healer,
              the oldest of souls.

And it is warm here
in her jungle,
but just through the door
is the grey cold of winter,
and nothing more.