I Am…

Soiled hands and gritty, short nails. Walking through sharp creek beds and brambles. Shutting out the noise from the highway and staring into the blinking sky. Listening to crickets and tree frogs sing their songs to the night. Gently touching warm things made of fur and feathers and wishing that their precious lives were truly their own. Feeling the earth sigh with her never ending truth. Shimmering within a dragonfly’s wing. Making a home in swamps, marshes, deep woods and fields. Pushing a body through aches and pops like a lioness who knows she must hunt to live. Abandoning my shoes, my expectations, my layers of context, content and the crucifixion of my soul. Hearing the earth breathe and so I breathe. Being lifted on the wings of the east so I see what the hawks and the crows see. Looking to the south for the dragon that no longer exists yet knowing that it is inside me. Cleansing myself in the waters of the west and drifting on the backs of whales. Tending to the north and the land upon which I run and long for. Seeing that my feet are now cloven hooves and that my fingers are now roots that go into the belly of the mother of us all. Clinging to the earth from which I came, and to which we shall all return.

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com