HARNESSING DESTRUCTIVE POWER

Oh wind, gale force wind,

Tempestuous air, born from nowhere

Unleash your power.

Oh, be my friend this very hour.

You are sly and a rebel

Always in and out of trouble.

Set your sights on limbs and boughs

Tree roots, trunks and towers

Mangled, and twisted, and uprooted

Snap, break and crack with a canyon’s echo.

Press your face against a plate glass window.

Disfigure your distorted image.

Like a pounding surf that is unrelenting,

Never resting but always spending.

Oh wind, gale force wind

Don’t let the sun see you today.

Come be my friend this very day.

SLEEPING IN THE FOREST

A weeping willow made well by grieving

Dry your eyes with the sunrise

Let your hair dangle in the morning mist

Touching the ground with sweeping motions

With a comfort of down feathers

Make my bed in the glowing sun

Cover me with lilacs up to my chin

Don’t let me think of any anxious thing

Let me awake each morning with vines and leaves

  encircling my arms

Let the dew drops melt on my rose-bud cheeks

A wide enveloping oak tree, a blue spruce

  cool lush and green

I will not be seen hidden in tall tapering grasses

Hide my bed, make it of solid wood, impregnable

  to wind and weather

Let me awake to the sound of the trumpet

  morning glory

May I drown in each and every love story

Dress me up in white flowing silk and satin

Little children one by one with a wreath of flowers

  in their hair, bending down bamboo shoots

  to catch a glimpse of the lady-in-waiting

Only for a moment to spy in among the shadows

Heart pounds, earth sounds

A broken twig, a macaw flying in haste

The sound of a footstep too close

Run, run don’t look back

Slip out of sight with all your might

Safe inside we must never show

No one will ever know---

  that I make my bed in the forest.