I Gaze Out

I gaze out the kitchen window
As I wash the lunch dishes,
Past the snaggle of branches,
Oak, pine, hackberry, and hickory,
All in their winter skeletons
Except for the hackberry
Which wears a robe of English ivy
Like Adam and Eve,
Full of shame at its nakedness,
Past the tan concrete interstate wall,
Its screaming inhabitants
Flying by like wasps on the attack,
Not even visible until you feel their stings,
Past silver light poles, still as sentries,
To the unmarked, cerulean sky.
I sigh, drop my shoulders, 
Unfurl my brow, and smile.
Something in us is made 
To stare into the distance.

Reflection
1.Describe the setting that helps you feel this way. When was the last time you went there?
2.What does that setting evoke in you? 
3.What is it about that setting that brings that out in you?

Not Half

Not half, but more than half,
A week away from a were's terror,
Lopsided of face,
Rolling up the night,
A silver tire, flattened on one side,
Cut, perhaps, by star shards
That sparkled light years ago
To accompany your limping hike
Across my crystalline January sky.

Reflection:
1. When was the last time you let your imagination run when looking at a natural object. Did you enjoy it, or not? If not, what kept you from enjoying it?
2. Pick something in your view, and re-imagine it as something else with a different existence or even a point of view. What is the value of such an exercise of imagination?
3. What keeps you from doing this more often, especially if you enjoy it? How could you make a place in your life for exercising your imagination?

Dust To Dust

I like to have a little sawdust on me 
To remind me who I am,
Since I came from dust long ago,
Further back than my cells can remember,
Back before they could tell the difference 
Between their own kind 
And the other kind 
And the Other 
That they may or may not have perceived,
When trees were shelter and shade, 
Clothing and food, 
Warmth and seasoning, 
Weaponry and tools,
Long before they bowed before us 
As product to developer 
Or nuisance to improver-of-lands, 
Lands that were as perfect 
As one can imagine 
Before the vain attempt.
I mingle my own dust 
With the dust of trees 
In the hope that I might join our lives
And make something, 
A marriage of species
That bears a wooden child 
With a soul like mine.

Reflection
1.Do you feel a sense of estrangement between yourself and the natural world? If so, what causes that? If not, how have you escaped it?
2.Do you feel connected or separate from your ancestors who lived off the land? 
3.If you create art or craft, how do you put your soul into the inanimate object of your art?