Burning maples vibrating with life
but the dead snag holds the hosts
the bluebird & titmouse piping their heart songs
a gray squirrel family chattering their urban sprawl
putrid bark rife with millipedes and sow bugs
as a red capped woodpecker pounds and picks for lunch
while the fungi creep and crawl the cracks and crevasses.
And who is more alive?
Those who shine now all around us?
Or the hosts of our ancestors
who people our memories and surround us
nurturing us from their graves.
contort this way
Once they grew straight and hollow
were used for sewage pipes
To avoid this fate they learned
to grow crooked as a mountain road
‘Dandelion’
Sunny dandelion
going to seed in a
white fluff ball
first one puff
carries away a seed on its tiny umbrella
on a breeze
off to college another
drifts down to work
suddenly the big wind blows and
all the seeds are gone
scattered to the world
with the solitary stem
numbering its day til
frost brings an end
Shared from the Heart by Andy Weatherly of Asheville North Carolina.
Learn more about Sacred Fire Community fires and the dance of deep community.