POETRY

Words Spun from Sentry

For Sarah, and all the women who walk mountains

Us women trek, dazzled 

by beds of mica, 

and limestone stacked like books,

a collected history of movement gone still. 

We cultivate fire at a lakeside rest stop 

and share the reasons we came here: to confess, disrupt, defy death,

swing from one peak to another in an alpine bowl. 

The delicate pitch of Rasta gives a glimpse

of the Esplanade range, and Sentry

a promise that what is vast is the shelter.   

Lady of the Lakes echoes 

with the steady cries of osprey

flapping into their first season 

(Look at me! I’m flying!)

and the Saxifrage's flower dries but does not dull. 

Sweet Vetch bounces back after a passing footprint.

Anemones keep it light despite 

losing their heads to the wind

and I follow a mountain monk’s voice

up and up, in resting step.

I fill the container for those days ahead with shadow,

and breathe to the bottom of every stem

to imprint this moment,

for what else could possibly be in front of me,

but answers to everything.

It is not for us women to throw spears or take a throne

when we learn to drink up the light,

but instead agree to find love in our knowing

and nod our heads, as though amazed,

when the ordained speak.

Figure 1: Intuition

When they stand, hear them,

all your hairs together, not bristled,

but listening from the surface

of your own bedrock,

sweeping the air

for that unsung sense that comes,

el golpe a la puerta,

when your back is turned.

Trust the prickle of something right

the way you trust the waft of

a cake bottom burning, the taste of

mouldy fruit, a retracted hand

from the rose bush.

All the voices,

adding stones to your strata,

blocking the view of your ancient self,

heed the hair, instead. Take permission

from a thousand follicles whispering

Yes!

to that first flash.

Go walk the darkness, Qué Sabe.

Hand down your knowing, before the moment rests.

New Love

(A Villanelle)

The woman with bohemian luck promises

we’ve lived together several lifetimes.

And you and I stare at her and smile, spiritual novices

blown in from a prairie to island city premises

exploring the edge of the Pacific, in search of new life vines

from a woman with bohemian luck promises.

This rock, with its soft forest floor, tells of a colossus

of travelling seeds and souls over centuries, sublime

like the grey owl hidden in the oak, outwaiting the kingdom’s novices.

For years, you and me talk about trading oil for ocean goddesses

and renewed life demands we connect our days with divine

belief in the woman with bohemian luck promises

because she knows one of our lifetimes is upon us.

When a trail’s snagging branch hooks, or a sky opens, we read the signs

to conjure courage. Pioneering new love, we are brilliant novices,

in touch with our ancient selves, surrendering to earthly solaces

that we will find our way here, to mountains worth the climb.

You are no longer life’s awkward novices

assures the woman with bohemian luck promises.