YOU ARE A ROAMING TREE (poem)

I quiet my mind, breathe deep,
soothe my racing heart
& listen;

for her love coming up the
horizon
like a thunderstorm

I bolt from my house,
take off sprinting in her direction,
shedding dress, socks;
naked in surrender.

& then comes the rain.

Tiny dots across my skin,
pinpricks give way to
my shivering;

I bite my purple lip & look up at the sky,
arms all high & wide,

“Hey there, mother nature”

She cackles electricity;
rumbles belly laughs —
she is the definition of steady:

patience that outlasts;
stillness unbent.

Her mountains are always rising
or being pulled apart;

She howls at high altitudes — growling pains
from boulder slide contractions & cliff faces succumbing
to the sea’s persistence;

She is not unbothered; she is alive & quaking,
she is dancing, shaking.

She expels molten
from watery chasms deeper
than her mysteries are vast
(a library full of unread books;)

& she wants to know —

Why her children won’t receive
when all that she offers is free:

“Listen to the song of the trees
to find your soul’s seat,

you are a roaming tree,
pick up & put down
roots,
let them spiral, splinter, cascade;
let them bump into other

trees far & wide,
dissimilar than your own.

Together,
we are an ecosystem;
you were born to lean
into & onto me.”