From Sacred Fire, 1998, by Nancy Wood
The Earth is all that lasts.
We who have been asleep for years
return to plant seeds in abandoned gardens.
We summon the rain and beg for the sun
to release its energy to our care.
The Earth is all that lasts.
We who were flattened by our inability
to rise above the wreckage of the past
are eating shadows
in order to stay alive.
The Earth is all that lasts.
We who were invisible, except
to those with similar vision,
stand here possessed by our old lives.
We are unwilling to disappear from our origins.
We have replaced shame with serenity,
doubt with desire.
Our skin is bursting with new muscle.
We are one with snowmelt and with Fire.