The Eagle and the Adder
For a Land of Spirits
An eagle circles over.
Vicariously,
Pondering me.
Waiting on me.
Patiently.
Within the forest a child dreams the bad dreams.
~
A Death Adder looks the child in the eyes,
Dares the child to open.
Snakes along the road.
Fear projections and serpentine shadows.
‘Why won’t you open?’
~
In the forest,
Stands a tree for every dream.
Trees for the hiding.
Trees to stop the wind,
And the thoughts.
Trees to build a bearable world.
Trees for the ego.
Trees for the dissociative.
~
The adder speaks,
‘Child, it is time to leave,
The forest is blind and fearful.
Find the edge.
Find beginning.’
Shadow passing,
Raises something ancient in me.
Eagle passing,
Watching over me.
Patiently.
Moving me.
Young and fearless.
Watching waves roll in,
Crashing and receding.
Complacent to the wind.
Wondering where the snakes have been?
~
The wind gently picks up.
Catches dust and swell,
Of the child and grave within.
Of thoughts and fears.
~
Caught in a tempest of the soul,
And a desire for the trees.
Cries of the sky.
Eagle following me.
Reminding me.
In the desert,
Marches the independent and invincible.
Headlong into reckoning,
Into peace.
~
Beneath the burning Sun,
The transient father wound,
Teacher of survival,
Anywhere but inside.
~
Soon thirsty, soon hot.
~
Upon the martyred mother Earth,
Eroded for her soil.
~
Soon weak, soon desperate.
~
The desert light is held to the soul.
Caught naked and weeping.
No trees now, no hiding.
Nothing left but to dig, to confront.
~
Release the sweet groundwater.
Release the truth.
Bathe in her fountain.
Grow now in the water,
In the Sun,
In the Earth.
Fallen eagle’s feather,
Reveals a place of sacred rest.
Not yet.
Old now, upon the mountain view.
The diorama spread beneath,
Shadows framing light in the valley.
Fear and trauma describing beauty.
~
Distant rain resuscitates the sinners,
And placates the rulers.
Drops of life for the newborn,
For the weak.
~
Wind passes untamed.
Wild and transient.
Free of ruminant being,
Free of,
Responsibility.
~
Naked above the vastness.
Outstretched, out for all to see.
Stripped to see all within.
Humbled by this place.
~
Of this land of spirits.
Of this land of guides.
Outstretched, out in the dirt.
Eagle,
Take me home
