I walk the path Muddy through tall wet grass To the gravelly bank and stand in running water while the snow falls

I row slowly oar blades pulling against glass the face of water in a high tree lined lake

I run out from a launch to the sound of the my motor's call against tides and chop in the south salish sea

I stand on a beach in tide up to my knees the sound the waves in my ears...

The music I chose was old but new while the morning was bathed in fog and my Dad got to see the northern lights last night far away from the bog

The worries of the world aren't far away but there's no sense in letting them own me today a new year started time for me to venture out into the world

She doesn't care about people her charge is all of it the seasons feed the changes that grow all things she loves

The universe is vast but we won that great numbers game the lottery for life and there must be more out there wondering about here and until I know what else there is to know all that matters is kindness

The holidays settled just past a solstice and the world was dark in many ways

The rain was too much and people forgot their way that kindness is all that matters

A field lay north of a south line of firs that the sun didn't peak past since the fall

The sky became clear and the light came over top limbs laden with needles warming tangled tall grass

A bit of good news at the same time delivered and I remembered the thing I forgot

Darkness doesn't cast though the days shorten through summer sun from it's laziness will wake and we won't suffer the darkness to last

I'm mourning a place even though I'm not gone yet I know it's language and think often of it's people then and now

I was born on the land of the prairie chicken transplanted many times grew and thrived on this land near this sea

But soon enough I'll leave her it's names still on my tongue pilgrim to a strange land new words to learn again

I walked the river long ago when the children were young finding a fish on a dragons tooth swung long and low losing the big fish to lady Caroline

Today it's different I leave the rivers be and search in the salt with red eyed minnows....

I met brother heron on that river though and he follows me everywhere I go

We three worship river, lake, salt chuck church hunting secret swimming truth and silver splashing dreams

The same moon stares down at the peak thrust up from serpentine high grey green gloss wreathed in black

My headlights peeking down an empty highway, no music blaring My mind clear like the thin cold air

No line in the darkness Dark shadows like little trees Sparse with one branch

Splashing behind me Smells like grey salt and briney things swimming in schools

Morning clouds in the haze white feathers thud to a stop water erupts

Blood on the beach

It's not something in the orange instead the dark grey line into the blue with the trees back-lit from a gentle night sky that hasn't yet said goodbye to the sun

The grass is taller than I am and the rain left it heavy and wet and the truck is loaded and gassed up and I'm ready to get

One night the lake was black as space Reflecting stars And the big mountain slope was half in shadow But the other half the color of the full moon Her trees wreathed with snow like scales on a fish and her mood alive and terrible

She was alive in that place Communing with the stars Her slopes shone like metal And her mood like a red hot sun at noon Talking the long language of planets, a niche and I knew she remembered a crucible

I pass her slopes often and she's not been awake since I wonder in the long peel of geologic time did I see her wake once in a million(s) of years and the lake's young depths, are no longer afraid