What I Almost Heard

It's warm now, but too warm. Birdsong pours liquid trills as if inviting us all to spring tea. Can you call something “unnatural” if it happens in nature?

We discuss death and funeral arrangements, tiny homes in the woods, and what it means if one us is queer. There are things you can ask of a man – things he can do or not do – and then there is the glowing beautiful orb he is given by Mother Cosmos, which, if you can nurture and tap into that, makes the world safer. Breathing becomes as easy as wind moving through pines on a mountain.

In a short-sleeved t shirt, two sizes too big, I unclog the bird feeder and take a barefoot stroll over ground which was covered in two feet of snow just two weeks ago. If it wasn't so windy, I would consider a bonfire for the branches downed by winter. I have an offering to make.

There was a time, when our hands met, that life danced like water bugs teeming in the quieter bend of the creek. There were days of limitless horizons and nights of constellations pointing toward the heaven we knew we owned. It's hard remembering what I almost heard.

While collecting old wood and kindling in the backyard, I am thinking about how love is so often laced with flight. Fliers, the sun and me. Perhaps is it enough to stay grounded in awe of feathered things.

Late into morning, I sit over words, working them into coherence. Work-life balance breaks me and I think the poetry and prose suffers for it. I see my role in the world outside of writing and pondering Mother Earth, but I mostly just want to do the quieter, alone things.

A spider moves freely above my desk so I ask, “if I promise not to burn, eat or kill you, will you stay?”

Love
never a surprise
this burning home
inside