knocking myself off the stool
wake up and smell the brain cells frying
can I write coherent thought?
or am I simply dreaming?

something slips through hourglass
grain by grain
my eyes are dim I cannot see in borrowed light
I think it is my grains of life
of time
of moments
slipping silently away
a stealth
a warning
sound alarms
remember it is power to think
and plan and dream
and not reject the wheel
at high speed
as not important to hold onto
with eyes open
stay awake
the cliff approaches

and here i put this pen to paper
my Spirit blood flows down my arm and onto the page
i do not fear being naked
as there is no hiding from this truth
yet it is carved in code
in secret language
in runes
it is humbling to place them here
at the altar of other wanderers
and i will write
as i must
these words
C Patricia Sky Bellefleur 2017

things are crusting,breaking
mud dun-colored
cracks in sheets like pottery
thrown by the world in the shape of drought
arid, dry and barren
crunching beneath my old boots
they have carried me well nigh seventy years
of wandering

I stamp down to break the honeycomb
of parched mud
some syrup of past rains
oozes through
now limned in dust
forgotten
an echo of rain

a memory rises up sharp and sudden
your face lined and creased in grief
your mouth moving
my ears frozen
silence in my dead heart
an echo
of us
C Patricia Sky Bellefleur 2017

i speak these words into the swirling void
rich throbbing energy rebounds
within my spirit sings a resonance
may i learn to treasure silence

my feet they speak to me as they contact the MotherEarth
they tell me how and where to walk upon Her
they carry me to places where i find the learning
the deeper language of the mystery
of ancient things

trees surround stand stoic in the light rain
rooted in the Earth they demonstrate a way of being
may i always listen to the silence
the one that speaks if i can only hear
the one that roars through me when i am still
the one i try to translate
C Patricia Sky Bellefleur

shirring down
rain slides whispering through the grasses
clings to every drying flower head gone to seed
bushes tightly bunched
against the stalking winter wind
buffalo herding round
circling the remains of autumn
summer lost to us all

leaves
racing for cover
freed from tree prisons
off on walkabout
seeking some adventure
bound for bonfires
or compost mountains
or gathering in communion against my garden wall
gossiping in their secret leafy language
secrets of the seasons
mysteries of the Earth
Mother tongue
wet is this silver morning
wet with life
C Patricia Sky Bellefleur