|
| |
Wild Roots of September
In raw dawn I emerge
crow-thoughts
pecking skull-bone
black as plowed earth.
Farm-stench floods –
dung, hay and blood –
primal musk of life
and death intertwined.
Yet in this first breath
of day there’s a peace
and so stillness
rising from the land
like a satin prayer.
Twin mountains loom
granite-toothed giants
gnawing at the pale sky’s
underbelly.
I but a mere-minuscule mote
of flesh and bone am
dwarfed by their
ancient scarred faces.
The tractor snarls
like a metal-jawed beast
that devours field-flesh
spitting soil.
My hands are rugged roots
that guide its hunger
plowing furrows deep
as grave-cuts.
But the earth yields
willingly, a quiet surrender
turning in my hands
soft as a child’s hair.
Autumn’s talons slash
the trees;
gold-crimson wounds
blaze on high.
Apples hang heavy
as bull-hearts
gorged on summer’s
stored fire.
I pause beneath
their burdened boughs
grateful for
this fierce abundance.
In this moment
I breathe deeply
feeling the earth’s
heartbeat beneath my feet.
As the day fades
night falls –
a raven’s wing.
Fireflies pulse with
earth’s eruptive heartbeat.
I breathe darkness
tasting wildness
the land’s raw essence
on my parched tongue.
But even in the darkness
a flicker of joy –
the quiet dance of stars
stitching the sky.
I stand still
absorbing the night’s clarity
finding peace
in its gentle, expansive face.
Seasons wheel
grinding years to dust.
Farm fades
a ghost in memory’s must.
Transplanted, I –
a storm-bent sapling –
root in suburban soil
alien and tame.
Still, I learn the ways
of this quieter earth
the song of crickets
and the patient stretch of vines.
Amidst this change
I find a new rhythm
a softer, yet equally
recondite connection.
And still, nature’s howl
reflecting through hills
in Longwood’s manicured gardens
in Brandywine’s patient
stone-tongued flow
and in the defiant oak’s
iron-bark stand.
As the cycle continues
September returns
eternal as breath
painting the world
in flame and blood-gold.
I stalk these quiet trails
remembering
the wild beast
that still prowls within.
In this reflection
I find not fear but hope, kinship
a shared pulse
the heart of the world in me;
and in that heartbeat
I reclaim my home.
As I hear the crow calls
heralding the dawn
I arise anew
whole in this sacred cycle
ready to welcome
the dawning new day.
Copyright ©
Daniel Henry Rodgers
|
|