Posts Tagged "Earth"

The Snakes Of September

All summer I heard them rustling in the shrubbery, outracing me from tier to tier in my garden, a whisper among the viburnums, a signal flashed from the hedgerow, a shadow pulsing in the barberry thicket. Now that the nights are chill and the annuals spent, I should have thought them gone, in a torpor of blood slipped to the nether world before the sickle frost. Not so. In the deceptive balm of noon, as if defiant of the curse that...

Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction, no falsifying dream Between my hooked head and hooked feet: Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat. The convenience of the high trees! The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray Are of advantage to me; And the earth’s face upward for my inspection. My feet are locked upon the rough bark. It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold...

Prayer To Earth Mother

Earth Mother receive in your great bounty all the blood that has poured over me, the sorrow that has mired me down. Let me be free, so flowers and trees may sprout from me to the heavens, so birds may come and perch on my wings and sing their eternal song of gratitude. Dear Earth Mother, may your bounty feed the downtrodden, may you comfort each knee and forehead pressed into your layers, may la Virgen de Guadalupe’s roses...

Blessing Of Seeds And Rain

It is not far-fetched to say that our health, our very lives, depend on the sprouting of seeds. The planting of seeds and nurturing through harvest, we receive God’s choicest blessings when we break from our labors and enjoy a simple meal. Saving some of the new seeds allows us to continue this miraculous cycle of nature. Besides planting in the good earth, seeds cannot grow without fresh water. The cycle of rain blesses us, and water...

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate, When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land’s sharp features seemed to me The Century’s corpse outleant, Its crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind its death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and...