Under a temple of sequoia,
I do not fear your ravenous wild
which lives in everything—
flowering desire.

What drives my folly
drips longingly with mad nectar,
finds your mystery alive in my eyes,
mystery coloured in vibrant azalea.

There is no forest, just
deciduous portals to other worlds.

Beneath an outgrowing meadow
of detritus, decay has a lurid scent
of pine that lingers; And your roots

guide my descent into the darkest deep,
a thousand years into the Holocene.

Show me
how to carry this endless dream.
Make me remember where
I am and will always be:

in raindrops streaming
to the understory,

in hollowed trees pulsing rivers
of sun in between,

in conifer transpiring seeds
from branch to leaf,

in earthworms relishing
the sweetness of skin,

in the enduring vision of you
that exists in the marrows
of me.

Maybe in time
touched by waterfalls of memory,
I will return to your world again—
cloaked in dirt and evergreen.

Spring morning,
quiet. One coyote,
three deer
running in snow.

What else have I seen?
A sparrow hawk in mid-air ******
a robin, a sharp-shinned hawk catch
a rabbit in its talons.

A deaf mute in a pear tree.
Not one wolverine
in Utah or Italy.
Nor a famous samurai.

A young black bear
traverses the lawn in August.
Also quarks. Also oaks.
Do not disturb its progress!

A red fox
alert, no limp
flows silently
across the meadow.

First light, green tea.
A person thinking
epochs and eons.
A platoon of chickadees.

What is between schocking red, earthly pink, and plummed purple?

Life. Grass. A trembling leaf. Force of green.

Their freedom granted by bifurcation
Roots severed from the family tree
They mourned the living, in brief
Discarded the wither and blight

Shed no tears to the fallen branches
The stench of phantosmia remains
Spring can't mask the memories
The wretched guilt shows no bark

The sap leaks through each season
The moss where blossom should be
Old wounds cast in the amber
Preserved for the life of the tree

Half dressed in a dawn chorus
Juxtaposed by muted decay
A lowly woodpecker knocks
Broken by a solitary shrill.

By Darren Wall ©

This wasn't the train. It scooped you up to a different destination. Birds of splendor followed along
Out the window
Winding in your path of grief. Be ready for the station waiting
To greet your sorrow.

The platform is not clear. The mist hides the light then becomes a flow of water you can reach and touch. Become aware of the grief but don't move towards it. See it instead in the palm of your hand. Dip into the water cupped in your hands to cleanse your sorrow.

You will have times of freedom. Embrace all feelings. Let them fall into the stream of water. You will lighten. You will see more color as the mist dissappears.

You will see the light between the leaves of the trees. The sounds of song birds lifting you up with messages for you alone.

light pierces the leaves
under the oak, you with me
october ends us
they say nothing good can last
you, my love, have proven this

Be as the leaves
of one tree dappled
by shades of light
that are never
in the same
pattern, floating
as stardust or
leaves, dream
as a poet
and hear the
words of
small things
in existence,
they are ways
of home for
the lost one,
an elusive
dancer of
the infinite.