Why the Earth Spat Fire – August 2022

When the Earth calmed down

from the long agony

of her waterless birth,

She spat Fire, and certain possibilities emerged.

The bones of animals,

the fins of unborn fish, and

the blood of scavenger birds

Were waiting for shadows to become durable

and for dust to recognize gravity.

 

From the ash of Earth’s spent energy

cooling moss crept forward.

Seas of salt ate up shorelines, and

rock defined the essential boundaries

Of ancestry. Fire devoured

land to make it habitable.

All along the shores and deserts

and mountaintops, everything

developed eyes and hearts

until Fire was finally satisfied.

The Breath of Fire – February 2022

From Sacred Fire, 1998, by Nancy Wood

 

The sacred mountains call to me when life becomes

too hard to bear

and all that stands between me and despair is

a little waterfall. With each mile I climb,

my sadness melts away

and I feel my old self returning.

The sacred mountains cure my anger

and replenish my will to resist

those who would diminish me.

 

In wildness, I am made whole by beauty.

In wildness, I am humbled by majesty.

In wildness, I am content to find

eternity in a buttercup

and courage in a drop of rain.

I give to you this life – December 2021

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

 

I give to you this life

which is not the only life I have.

I am the forest living and dying.

I am the melancholy of falling leaves.

I am eternity in green.

I am water flowing strongly

Not in the lifetime of one man only

But down the rocks of generation

Across old deserts of humiliation

I run in anticipation toward the sea.

I give to you this life

which is the outer garment only.

I have clothed myself in riches

Sewn by hands in praise of home.

I am made of pollen and wings and bone.

I am wind reflected in moonlight.

I am ice crying out for food.

I am fire embedded in stone.

I am fields released by sun.

I give to you this life

claimed by what I do not own.

 

When the hand of winter gives up its grip on the sun – March 2021

From Many Winters, 1974, by Nancy Wood

 

When the hand of winter gives up its grip on the sun

And the river’s hard ice becomes the tongue to spring

I must go into the earth itself

To know the source from which I came.

Where there is a history of leaves

I lie face down upon the land.

I smell the rich wet earth

Trembling to allow the birth

Of what is innocent and green.

My fingers touch the yielding earth

Knowing that it contains

All previous births and deaths.

I listen to a cry of whispers

Concerning the awakening earth

In possession of itself.

With a branch between my teeth

I feel the growth of trees

Flowing with life born of ancient death.

I cover myself with earth

So that I may know while still alive

How sweet is the season of my time.