Solstice Dreams

three poems

photo by shf

a nest of wishing wells

sturdy with straw and strands of hair

twigs flown in by ample beaks

moss to fill the gaps where chills might venture

island of solitary confinement

promise of destiny

given time and temperature and genetic ingenuity

a strong dose of instinct

and perhaps witnesses will remember

the cracked shell, the emergence

the reach for food

the stretch of wing

and if we’re lucky

incubated potential

to wild flight

from here

on the opposite side of the river whose headwaters bubble from a city park and flow miles to the delta, to its sister, to the sea. . . .

on the opposite side of the river that flows in slow motion these days when all the water is still in the clouds and seasonal creeks thirst and the salmon feast elsewhere and rapids are no longer and rock hounds step into the middle sluicing for gold. . . .

on the opposite side of the river that I cannot see but know is there beyond the meadow and down a sheer cliff that I have imagined falling from to land on the train tracks that edge the bank, my body limp in an accidental plot line. . . .

a ridge rises like a wall the sun must scale to reach the sky and a landslide sends me a note, reminding me what it looks like to let go, when deep red earth shows itself once the rooted things have tumbled into new shapes, the leavings feeding gravity and time.

shouldn’t I be grateful

to have the wherewithal to unfurl the covers at one a.m.

on a cold night on this mountain

to leash up my oldest dog

because her digestive system is for some reason

now regulated for evacuation after midnight

which means tightening the belt of my plush plum robe

and slipping on my red garden clogs and

fastening my headlamp

and cracking the door to her prancing

and walking the distance with her to the forest’s edge

when suddenly the moon shows itself streaming through the

black oak branches drawn by an icy hand

and its light steals the show in a tale

of shift and change and wax and wane

and being there even when I’m not

reminding me to remember the patterns,

and the arcs and shadows

of what we know in our bones,

that a walk in the dark after midnight

can give us back what we had forgotten.