The unseen, unheard spirit that guides us

does not linger in the pews of a hollow church,
It doesn't commute through the veins of a five-lane highway.

It doesn't nest in the bones of suburbia

or whisper between the teeth of an office cubicle.
It waits where the earth still breathes.

In the gentle songs of a waking bird,

the hush of leaves surrendering to the soil,

the wind’s low hymn through cathedral redwoods,

the autumn air, cold and sharp.
These are the roots that connect us to our home,

woven into marrow, into memory.
But I tore myself from the earth,

uprooted from my lover, my tribe, my sanctuary in the sleepy woods,

chasing gold that turned to dust in my hands.
I just pray the ground will take me back.