Oh the Joy!

She does undress for me
Or perhaps more truthfully
She allows me to see her bare
Without my asking

I do not protest, I confess
But watch in rapture
Entranced as eyes move from shadowy crotch
To length of limbs for legs
With a long slender trunk inviting admiration too

All naked of Aspen bark
And lying there on the ground
Singed gray by fire from the sky
With wild grass blades for hair
In just the right places

I am not foolish enough to say “No”
To refuse such an intimate invitation
for my eyes and heart to make love with a tree
Particularly one lying now so invitingly on forest’s floor
As she reminds me of the debt this gift of body incurs
One day to again lay between the legs of the Great Mother
Stripped of breath and human bark and flesh

At home with Earth and Sun
Wind and rain and snow and stars and moon too
Companions as I too again shape-shift into soil
And complete yet one more round
In this great cycle of living and dying
Reciprocally giving back with gratitude—
What is mine to claim
But for these few breaths I am present with

Notes & Reflections:
Show me a man or woman who is not moved by the sensuality inherent in nature… and I’ll show you someone cut off from their own life-force. And going yet further, I’ll wager that learning to open our senses within the natural world to our imaginations, is not only a kind of home-coming but also a pathway to personal and collective healing of our separation from nature, from our very selves.

This poetic riff is simply a celebration of my own senses coming awake in the world.