What have I learned during this life

From Shaman’s Circle, 1996, by Nancy Wood

 

What have I learned during this life of falling often on a path that

offered me direction I did not take? The language of snails.

 

Why did I ignore the advice of those who had lived a long time?

So that I could embrace my own mistakes.

 

Who was willing to accompany me on my painful journey?

Myself alone, dragging along the shadows of experience.

 

What shall I give to those ready to embark upon an even steeper
path?

An open heart. Resistance to despair. Laughter. Most of all,

 

The love of birds, animals, and spirits who watched my progress and said,

Though you have arrived, you are nowhere at all.

Wherever my eyes fall – November 2018

 

From Many Winters, 1974, by Nancy Wood

 

Wherever my eyes fall

I see you everywhere.

In the still pond gathering ice

To conceal itself from winter

You are the deep shy water.

In the slow built sparrow’s nest

Of infinite eggs and seasons

You are the mother to spring.

In summer flowers bursting

Down from the mountaintop

You are a wild and fragile dancer.

In the autumn wind at odds

With the disappearing leaves

You are the promise of next year.

Wherever my eyes fall

I see you everywhere.

You have thus become my vision

As my eyes go blind with years.

I would like to be a tree – October 2018

 

From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood

 

I would like to be a tree

but you would cut me down.

I would like to be a river

but you would build a dam.

I would like to be a bird

but you would poison what I eat.

I would like to be a deer

but you would shoot me for my meat.

I would like to be a fish

but you would catch me in your net.

I would like to be a coyote

but you would want me for my skin.

I would like to be a grizzly bear

but you would kill me because I’m rare.

I would like to be a flower

but you would pick me to take home.

I would like to be what I am.

Is there any hope for that?

Time takes me on its wing – September 2018

From Hollering Sun, 1972, by Nancy Wood

 

Time takes me on its wing

and I travel to the sun

And am consumed by fire.

Time takes me on its wing

and I travel to the river

And am drowned in water.

Time takes me on its wing

And I travel into the earth

And am a mountain not yet risen.

Each place that I go

Others have gone before me.

That is why

The sun dances

The wind weeps

The river leaps

And the earth sings.

Neither the sun nor the wind

The river nor the earth

Did these things

Before man was placed in the world

To believe it.

The Peculiar Grace of Men – August 2018

From Wild Love, 1996, by Nancy Wood (unpublished)

 

He never dances, except with me, in

a swirl of love and half-remembered music

that pours from his lips as he turns me

toward him like a bird. His is not a dancer’s body,

but that of a man accustomed to living life

in the raw. He is clumsy on his feet and cannot

keep rhythm to the simplest tune. The peculiar grace

of men in love saves them from awkwardness,

especially when women don’t notice

the way such creatures

trample on their feet.