I do not feel the Earth beneath me,
do not feel my feet touching down
being pulled in
to something deeper.
I do not feel the cold Appalachian air in my lungs
I do not yet know
the name of its life force.
I did not see the leaves turn from green to honey’d shades of gold and ember.
I did not watch the leaves fall or witness the sky give itself unto elder-hood
And take on its winter shades of ice and gray.
There are yellowed ginkgos
And maple leaves like crowns strewn across the street here
I feel stuck in this loop of left turns back to his house.
Odin pulls me out and in,
Calling me when I have lost my way
He eats the fallen leaves
And I wonder if he knows something I don’t
about the importance of ingesting something so close to death
Something that will never be quite the same again
(I’m sure he knows)
I do not feel the Earth beneath me,
But I look at the trees,
Barren and cracking
And I understand.
Without rest there is pain.
Your own body will turn against you
Put you in agony
Just so you will please. slow. down.
It will reconstruct all the peaks and valleys you’ve made in your mind
And the pulsing of a newness within
Will push you to what you think is your limit
Make you believe you can’t bare another second of the crippling pain
Even when you know that is the only way out
Must give into the pressure growing in your head,
The thuds,
the pounding,
A new way is being constructed
(I cannot look into the light because I am supposed to be walking into the darkness.)
Your body will expose all you’ve held in to the outside world
Until the only thing left for you to surrender is blood and bile-
nothing is yours anymore.
You belong to the current of the seasons now
and if everything here is giving away and dying
you must too.