In the valleys between the blare of sirens
And the bite of flashing lights 
Sometimes you can still hear the sound of bells
Ringing, ringing, asking
Will She come to visit in my open door tonight?
I’ve left the hinge ajar in waiting

No anticipation can be greater,
She claims the moon as child
It’s complexion is sweet rice milk
Standing in the night sky’s gravity 
Spinning, spinning, giving
Soft illuminations to 
those tired in their travels

I have prepared a gentle bed for Her
Perhaps She’ll come and rest awhile
She has been churning the milky ocean,
  the galaxy of stars
Blinking, blinking, calling 
to the denizens in their shelters 
made of hollow trees

Though I’ve sent the invitation, 
I would think that She ignored it
For I was born in ill repute
  And small. 

She paints the color of sky,
Midnight black
Taking, taking, owning
Every color in the spectrum
   We are mere ebullient playthings
    thinking of our ends. 

I prepared a kindly meal,
The instruments of brass laid bare
 Bone dry, sterile, 
Sparkling, sparkling, hoping
For the dinner guest to bring Her flare

I fear that She will never come
So Giri says,
I will wait alone awhile, 
and then I’ll wait again.
I’ll make a meal the next day,
And leave the door open
Hoping one day She’ll arrive.

Elysium, elegia,
Oak arms reach in silver skin
I wear the skull cap of a Buck
and pray that our gods 
take note in their world

We try to reach it with our effigies,
Stone carvings of human faces,
Animal bone, candle wicks,
and polished brass:
The water becomes new,
It takes in its ambrosial beatitude
In one cupped palm we imbibe
And then we ring the bells

I have uttered sacred words 
counting seeds in the hand
bearing flame and incense,
The crone and the witch
come to visit:
I have taken liberties in this life
bearing the witness of harm,
those concoctions and inebriations.
Though I’ve survived to meet the woman
who holds time in one hand,
and space in the other 
 
Born under the sign of Centaur
They have told me that god is a man
and he died hanging on a cross of wood
but my god is a woman
and she bears the form of wood
She lives in the torrent of rain
Under the willow bark,
She is the speckle of life that breathes
In the waters and the streams
She wears twigs and barleycorn
Tucked in the furrows of her hair
And she dons the rags of Birch bark
With stones in her toes 

They said that god is small,
That he lives only in their house of stone
But my god is the stone itself,
A wild woman, Clear of color, 
sometimes dark as night,
She whistles in the sound of wind,
And she is the the hum of thunder
The Bristlecone, the briar friend,
Mistletoe and straw

I offer these bones of oak
    the children of the tree
To the wooden woman
     in the hearth and home

I strike a match, the sulphur
   fills the air, in trails and wisps,
       a crackle.
I hold the flame to candle

I spread a golden goblet of sand
   on a bronze plate of symbols
  Then place the candle there

I take a branch of oak
  fallen in the black street outside
  and write the shape of a leaf
  an epigraph in sand
  Carefully,

I place an acorn there
  Does the wooden woman smile?
    Does she know?
      Has she seen me through 
      the veil of Dew.

Let the candle burn through night:
  I hold my palms in praise
  folded over the blade of the rib
  I bow my head to Her
   Dear candle warm my winter
    I’ll carry this acorn with me 
      when I require strength.
    

The old grey mountains outside
Live inside our bones
Where the heart swells in its home
And the wild smell of earth 
Comes to coat your nose 
like a light stint of rainfall 
on the mountain trail road 

You do not belong there 
Tucked away inside your
Painted box of wood 
All your senses locked in their quiet
Obfuscation - your mortal eyes
Trapped in the long line of stop lights
Under these towers made of glass
where the worried heart 
forgets its real nature

John Muir says the mountains
Are calling and I must go.
The journey begins where the road ends:
This smell of earth lives
Inside the codons in our genes
It makes the lungs swell with air
It lives inside the electric current
In the apex fibers of the heart muscle 

You do not belong there.
The mother talks to you in turbid dreams
That leave a sheen of sweat on your skin
And a roll of blankets 
lie covered in your water made of fear
This mountain calls - it speaks -
This is God’s country: 
Where the old rainfall left a mud trail
Where the birds take to the mountain breeze
Like little autumn leaves - elevation gaining
And the great cliffs drop away
in their vertiginous longing 
for the mother dirt

How long will you stay 
in your temple of occlusion? 
The cold air outside 
enlivens the bleating heart strings 
And the skin bristles in its gooseflesh 
When the golden protuberance of sunlight
Touches down upon its surface 
And this case of bone becomes alive again
Walk from your cage, your dying body
These trails have written your name 
In the mud 
Where the paved road ends
And the rocks of gravel start to grip
Under your toes.

In these wild wanderings 
we begin to find the tune of our music 
like lotus water and red painted sindoor
paper folded cranes in a sun stained window
and the shadow of the master
standing on the wall

Bhavatarini: a woman dances in circles
and screams at her mother.
We all touch her feet in this carnal church 
adoring only this rapture: 
this tantric window that whittles away
the barriers at the tops of our skin

We confront those stained glass windows
that cover the cave of the heart
like sun shadows moving in the daylight:
I’ve got no where to go
I’ve turned right at every fork in the road 
all these cobbled pathways lead back home 

Sea of pine and waves of oak
The Forest is a home
And I will always go there
A cold breath moves the branches
In the wood, 
Cooling the rocks with patterns of moss
The oaks are old gods and I thank them
Nonetheless,
 fear is  thunder
It beats the drum of the heart
And for a time
I am its muted prisoner
Though this sound blisters,
I can still hear the old muffled whisper
The hills and trees are alive
With a kind of thought Unknowable.
In the Other World,
They arise and fall
Arise and fall
I declare my love for them,
Old gods, old noble creatures
Though fears tympani beats continuous,
I see faces in the wood
And bones in the mountains
I call these beings my long time friends
I shall sit with them a while and wonder
At the rocks stuck between my toes

One thousand times I have failed you
Folly in that notion of a mustard seed
This body wrought of insufficient faith
And this heart of pulp seems
covered over by Father stone
like asphalt redolent from the new smell of tar

Still this nascent string of undivided love
moves inside like the coil of a spring
brick by brick along the vertebrae of bone

What creature stirs in that eternal cavern?
I’ve no sense of justice
bitumen - a Red Sea of taillights incessant
dragging wastrel in the tortuous Highway

He was a man they said - that Lord -
called God in iron wrath who dangled
His creations on the tip toe of His Finger
Held in utter horror aghast over
that Lake of liquid fire - well I
never wanted that from start to finish
Fear ranks high among the qualities of survival.

Then they - saving grace over the ages 
called It woman.
Oh hold at bay those night terrors
the jackal of sermon leaving white pellets of spittle on the mouth corner:

Wait. What fear is there of Mother?
Oh Dear - will you speak to Father for me?
He always seems to follow your command.