Seen :: – Water :: Earth :: Wind

Seen :: Frost Birds

did not have to go far today
to see a sudden burst of flight.
frost birds rise, startled,
in the dimming afternoon.

waiting like a fisher in a sea of air,
she casts her net, spinning silks
and delicate knots

washing the mountain dust from our bags,
I hang them to dry in the same sun that shines
on Mt. Shasta and on the Huichol village

like lines of a poem, tendrils, stems
and seeds of a hitchhiker weed
twist, turn and stick in my memory<

like notes scattered
across a sheet of music
waterfowl float on a curtain of dusk

clinging under the bridge
on a surface cold as stone, vines
like veins carry life force

this water flows constantly
a bejeweled veil falling over dark moss
lighting the canyon with a bride’s inner glow

a tatter of bearded lichen
grows where it falls,
the remnants at home anywhere