of garlic in October – a family tradition.
Hardneck ones underground in fall will sprout
in spring after sheltering all winter long.
Not so different from me these days,
with my papery coverings to protect me.
Tag Archives: nature
In the last minute of the world
Bright Energy
Snowdust

Snow dusting an Appalachian forest, by Don Sniegowski on Flickr
Fine flakes so intricately small they disappear
against bright gray sky, roads and sidewalks.
In this forest, every surface takes some,
except for the creek, which accepts it
as brethren. I extend my bare hands.
Transparent Eyeball
I am the mystic of this forest.
I am here and I’m not here.
My bare feet are atoms dissolving into
the atoms of the soil, or perhaps
I am the soil, air, the forest.
Inspired in part by this idea from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“We return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite spaces, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”