At night, a Christmas garland brightly lit —
Milky Way, spine of the sky.

It just struck me as odd
Since we sleep to regain energy
To do the things we need to
The next time the sun rises

But what do we rest in peace for
I think it’s a different kind of sleep
My matter dissipates in the dirt
And awakes to live in the roots
Of all the trees that gave me shade
And the flowers that defined beauty

The only better place I’m going
Is the world beneath your feet.

I look outside my window and it becomes within.
natures are converging on my behalf,
they’ve been here, the nest, the walls!
They come to end old twos with enchanted grasses,
so that now brass and birds are equal to know,
they sing, in harmony, from far to near,
they constitute the new world that brought you here: My symbiotic woman and creature clear.
I’l stop shouting ‘****** place!’ and ‘fleshless trees...,’ thinking of exotic canopies,
such sublime notions have betrayed this locality, downplayed our bonds,
could have never set me free.

Today, many worlds have travelled from afar, looked up at me,
finally! Joined to make me see.

So I open the window and shout at you: The world is multinatural!
Uneven textures fill my spirit,
dualisms have stopped debating,
silenced by the mind’s web creating.

And in the middle of these new topographies, your face,
coming to a door, made of trees, horses, thoughts and economies.
All histories, cultures and natures here: She is a node of forces,
ambassador of the new continuum and this ecstatic feeling,
an affective vision of a singular healing.

do you remember how we used to complain about the drought
ripped the green from the hills
and put us on watch
for how long our showers could be

i had to find a new place to cry for half an hour
and i had to watch forest fires on the 5 o'clock news all too often

now,
dams are breaking
and we can't stop the mood swings of Mother Nature

can you blame her?

the levee has been breached,
and the uncertainty is eating me alive
and oh,
how this reminds me of you

you set me on fire
and tried to drown me
and i never knew when to expect which
but i could always complain about the one that was happening

the changes in scenery were never what i wanted
i lay awake, hearing the raindrops hitting the roof
and i just don't know what tomorrow, or you, will bring me

Run away to a foreign country, one with plush yellow green pastures. The grasses hiss soothingly as the breeze brushes them down this way and that. My home, a simple one room shelter built atop a broad and wise dark leafed tree who has welcomed me to its strong open arms. The skirt of my plain brown dress tickles the tops of my feet as I step down onto the soft soily earth.

There are no people here but I am not alone. The wind is here to lift the overflow of thoughts from my ever questioning mind and the water is here to soothe me and commiserate like an old companion purified from the complications of humanity. The dirt is my mother and my father, providing for me. Nurtures me with its succulent plants and cups its hands so that I might take a few small fish from them now and then.

A spotted sun perch hangs behind me as I perambulate meditatively. I see a few delicate vibrant blossoms on the side of my arborous home. They chime a brilliant tune that I will later compose onto a clay canvas. The afternoon is spent cleaning the small token and then toasting it over fire. I tend the patches of nearly wild vegetables and fruits. The most desirable ones plucked for my plate.

Guardian stars begin to dot the serenity of a dazzling dusk that demands my awe. I am aware of my tiny existence and its grand insignificance yet at the same moment I feel as though I was specially chosen by the cosmos to witness this perfect event. An intoxicating shiver grips me suddenly as a gust flits up my spine and through the back of my hair. Slowly it falls and the lulling chirps of a million violinists begin to play to one another. An admiring amphibian adrift the pond lilies relinquishes some commending croaks.

As the dark begins to settle in I climb to my aerial cottage to lie down. The rustling of my nest-bed reminds my neighbor owl of the time and she hoots appreciatively before flying off to begin her hunts. The splendid nocturnal symphony soon sends me to my dreams.

I diluted
the piles
of bile
in my organs
with half
a bottle
of water

As once
I woke, -felt
the blob of
thickness
sloshing about-
knew it'd be one of
those mornings
on my knees
before the
royal throne

I still
taste
sour acid
and
the miasma
is still
swirling

I put my roots in warmth
and what is comfortable
sending them down
thick and deep into the soil
only to be stopped
by the desires of others
uprooting and replanting me
over and over
while my leaves wither
curling in on themselves
for dislike of
change.

we are all rocks. we are built up over many years, influenced by our surroundings as we weather and erode as part of the conditions we are subjected to - the trials that we are put through. we are compressed by the weight of heavy loads. we will be weighed down by our heavy hearts, and crushed by forces of the universe that are bigger than us. we are made up of many sediments, fragments of other rocks. the influence of others. we are the composition of everyone whom we've met, and their impact on our lives. some people leave larger pieces of sediment, while some are smaller than a tiny grain of sand. but they make us who we are today. and we never die. we live on for millions of years, you and me - these rocks are the physical imprints of our spiritual souls on the earth, because everyone affects something in one way or the other. we may not believe it, but believe this: we have the power to change the world - just by being here. we are a part of the bigger picture, a series of rocks that make up part of human history. wherever you go, you will have made your mark. be it just a tiny dent in the soil, or a boulder that fell from a mountain - realise that things would be different if you had not been what you are and gone where you've been.

And then I too
am part of the silence
that casts its post-sunset stillness
throughout this swamp white oak's great spread.

It seems as though even the hive of honeybees
and the nearby nest of baby birds
have stopped to admire
the feeling of the world
tilting on its axis; sinking through space.
We all gaze further upwards,
those bees and birds and I.
And nestled in the remaining twigs above,
is the shockingly finite dance
of the leaves... of the stars.

The shadows that hang from the top-most branches
cast their way down around me
and coat their way all over the ground, making it
easy to forget the height—
the ultimate suspension. Because
born within my skin
is a swamp white oak,
stretching its branches through the
grey matter in my mind,
over-taking and over-whelming.
At the end of it all is me:
a tiny little acorn laid
by an impossible evolution
of people into trees.

Every cell becomes leaf and
the heart a listening ear. Amongst
the chorus of the frogs,
the owls, the coyotes—
the chorus of the woods around—
is that shift
so revered.
The shift of the Earth.
The Earth tilting
on its axis.
It’s time to admit that the maps and
man’s little green boxes there,
are nothing but products
of a continually
diminishing temper... showing
that when this swamp white falls,
it won’t just be a wood
that’s finally left barren.
It won't just be a body
left emptied and charred.

Please, I think, as the bark gets flimsier
and flimsier
beneath my feet. As the wind gets fiercer
and fiercer
howling in my ears. *Please. Let this lone acorn
standing here
sprout into something.
Let a swamp white oak
be seen.