Prayer for a Big Bang — a poem

Sitting on the front stoop
Watching
breathing
the pine and cedar and houses
of Oregon and Canada
fall
Ash that turns the sun
into the red plastic gem
of my daughter’s princess crown

It’s so beautiful
watching it burn
So painful
all our dreams
of the good life
littering the sky
Humbling
To be told by Mother
You are dust and to dust you
Return

I can’t taste it
Can’t smell it
but I can feel it
pushing down on my lower
vertebrae
hunching over my shoulders
already adept
at closing in on me
This smallest piece of me
— like a black hole -
pulling everything towards it
Pulling it all in

I think I’ll let the ash
Keep falling
I think I’ll stop fighting
Condense
Concave
Contort
Until everything is packed in here
Everything
So tight
Watery chaos
And then

with a Breath

We Explode
into purple phlox petals
Shadow on shadows on the moon
and hot water over leaves of wild chamomile

Oh, Great Mystery
Give me a beginner’s mind
and a body tuned to ancestors’ wisdom
Make me a dragonfly
Let me taste Your Enough
amidst cottonwood branches
My reflection on the lake
Your thanks and praise
And when I land
and rest
on the shoulder or knee
of the dreamer who still dreams in plastic,
may my gentle presence
be my work
Love’s tickle
A prophet calling
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