At the foot of the screaming tree...

At the foot of the screaming tree

I listen to the winds howl in harmony

an angry litany

of questions piling endlessly

like confused leaves, warm on the forest floor,

on a summery autumn day

Glowing in the Dying Sunlight

There were phantom birds

haunting the dark forest last night

very nearly there

just at the edge of my vision 

but then not

I could hear them rustle

in the shaded leaves

and catch glimpses of 

rusted iron feathers but then 

they were gone

Meanwhile 

just above my head 

glowing in the dying sunlight

a web was being woven

by a spectral spider

The woods were alive with ghosts

Watchful

What the sycamore saw
she wouldn't say but
she left signs all along the forest floor

And seeing the corner of a
stained glass leaf
and recognizing that these 

1,000 panels 

are just one small part of one small leaf
in a woods with a million leaves
leaves me breathless
with the math of it all

Cool Comfort

A song was sung

that called the moon into the sky

The moon, in turn,
called the players into the forest

The forest, for her part,
welcomed them all within her shade

where they played in cool comfort

Satisfied

Passing an old leaf

beside the tired amber stream,

she called out to me

she called me by name.

Daniel, she said, formally,

Where are you going?

I was stupefied

I rarely talk to the leaves

and, well, that's my fault

Downstream, I reckon

lest I decide otherwise...

My mind could be changed.

The leaf said no more...

I think she was satisfied

and I'll try to be

A Song of Water and of History

Studying history begins - 

for me, today -

with a long look at

the water running

in no particular hurry

in the stream next to me.

It is, I realize,

the same water my grandmother drank

and boiled her snap beans in

It is the same water we crossed to escape torture

and the same water they drowned us in

before we escaped.

It is the Water that gathered all in one place

and separated the Dry Land from the Dry Land

It is the Water over which the Spirit hovered

and within which life began.

And so, I went down to the river to pray.

Down by the riverside.

Where we laid down our sword and shield

where we hung our harps and wept

bleeding history from our face

for the captors demanded we sing a song

of Zion

of Home

of Sanctuary

and there was

no

Sanctuary.

And so, studying history,

I remembered and recalled and imagined

and I built an ark

a boat bound for the promised land

over Jordan's stormy banks

beyond the muddy waters of the Ohio

across the Rio Grande

and like the stream beside me

I sang a song

a song

of Water

and of History

and of that first pair of centipedes that

crawled out of the water

and made a home for the rest of us

and waited for Paradise.

The Stream Called

The stream called slowly

and so convincing was she,

I nearly vanished

swept neatly away

as if I were a mem'ry

from a made up story

I am disappeared