with bark like alligator skin
the pines reach up up to the sky
eighty   one hundred   feet they fly their needles
as if to say
here we are O Wondrous One
take us
do with us as You will

little shake-tail squirrels chitter above me
as if to say   go away! this is our pine
you don't belong here!

I reply
I do belong here    the pines have told me so
I do belong here
the wildflowers have said so
and the creek has burbled its assent as well

I belong here   I repeat
I will stay here among the pines with alligatorskin bark
and the winds singing through the wood
and the creek seeking the sea
yes I will stay

and I will roll in the feeling of belonging like a dog rolls in herbage
and savor that I belong   I belong   here/now
at last


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater
2009/2014

coil, wind tendril
ancient
like light
through cloud shade
and
summer shine
pant the lazy beat
to moon rain's falling murmur
sing love to me
as I climb your windy shadow


*


yellow air flower
blow the languid wasp
away from the sun honey
beneath your bloom

it is a luscious drunk


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2009/2014

heart of day begins
cicadas rattle and thrum
the trees sing a song



in the frogs throat songs
I hear The Beloved speak
surrounded by night



c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2009/2014

On occasion, I send my thoughts
to rest awhile
in the small stand of bamboo
along my boundary
Its dappled interiors request
visits from my thoughts
so I send them at tea time
the better to be refreshed

On occasion, my thoughts return
in drunken heaps
to be sorted like laundry
into piles labeled
colors
shapes
and
revelations

On occasion, it's little use,
this sorting, for
they often end
in one pile again
as
poems
or
paintings
or
essays
or
as notes to friends


Roberta Compton Rainwater
c. 2009/2014

herbs new mown send green scent to me
an undertone of pepper - non-explosive -
marks this spot especially

a creole mixture to spice the morning walk

were I the chef of this walk
blandness would prevail
for blanding is safe
and requires no inspiration

I am learning recklessness and wantonness
it is in my eyes, should you peer into them
it is in my heart, should you sound it
it is in my being now and you can smell it on me
like the peppery scent in that spot there

I am become a creole recipe
delicious and warm
fulfilling and comfort to the traveler
in this landscape


Roberta Compton Rainwater
c. 2009/2014

long I dangled from
the rope of fear I wrought
I never looked down
I never looked down
until that day in the park
that day walking the dog
turning the day's events
over in my heart
cooking them over my heart's fire
for their nourishment

some small spark from the cooking fire
some small spark of courage
lent me by that fire
and encouraged by the wind
soughing through the trees
and the song of the cicadas
rattling and scratching the wind
some small spark of courage
let me look down at last
to see my feet but three inches
above
the Ground of My Being
above
the Ground of My Being
above
the Ground of My Being

there, near the cooking fire,
lay a knife
a knife to cut that rope
that rope of fear I'd wrought
and dangled with so long
and when I was done
I felt that Ground for the first time
the first time
the first time
in this existence


Roberta Compton Rainwater
c. 2009/2014