Through the windshield, light gleams
on the fields, the light green willow leaves
running along the creeks
seem brighter set
against the just beginning greening hills
dotted with oaks, cows, sheep,
small clumps of shy-hoofed deer.
All chomp in well-manured pastures
as I, too, feel richly fed..
Vultures overhead wing soundless circles,
a perched hawk, red-tailed, its haunting
call withdrawn, spies smaller prey;
crows’ wings rush, gust and clatter
onto walnut limbs to cackle and muster.
I loom with the hunter,
quail with its prey, prattle
with companions until our souls
are full-flush-fleshed.
By Walker Creek, a thousand white woolen
eyes crown coyote brush,
dried fennel stalks drop silent seed
among these wild ones I flourish and breathe
under sun-fog-rain sway.
Coiling bends round the broadening bay
whose undulating blue ripples peep between,
lending ease and space
against the pine-clad ridges, as the scudding sun
plays upon my skin into unseen depths.
Sprawled on the verge, a car-killed deer
awaits its airborne team with sharpened smell
to pick it clean. All seeps, sings and bounds in me.
Is it the light or the light
that I am soon to leave?
On boughed knees rest old trees sinking
into softened sod. The turn of seasons watch.
Their path is slowly set, while mine is filled
with urgency to laud and praise
give back one speck, one jot, of all
you pour into these marrowed bones.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raphael Block has lived on three continents and now resides happily in Northern California. A long-time meditator, he breathes in wonder at Earth’s and our own rhythmic ebb and flow. He is the author of Songs from a Small Universe, Spangling Darkness, Strings of Shining Silence, and a monthly Earth-Love Newsletter. To learn more about Raphael please visit his website raphaelblock.com where you can also watch a National Geographic selected 5 minute documentary.