What is the difference between nature appreciation and deep relationship with our more-than-human relations?  Here are clues: Court the poplar… Woo the waters… Propose to crickets… Wed earth’s timeless round.  To spend the month of July rewilding your own human heart click this link and join me in ancient ceremonies of Nature Worship. Classes begin soon!

https://lifewaysnorthamerica.org/workshops_training/kinship-with-nature-is-a-family-affair/

 

Pursuit

 April

   Court the poplar

   at water’s confluence:

  Speak the original language

            song, prayer, offerings

            wrapped in leaves

 

    Listen to arboreal speech.

     Slip inside the bark

     veins become phloem.

  Woman inside the wood

enchanted

is a wind harp

 July 

   Woo the waters:

Fingers trail amid

            crayfish

minnows

            flat green stones.

  Caress sand and silt;

they are twin sisters

  Star shine glitters in

               pre-eternal sand.

               Carbon’s combustive cycle

               deposits silk-spun silt.

 Electromagnetic signatures

are written in an elegant hand

  sand: tourmaline, jasper

  silt:   nitrogen, hydrogen

 October

  Propose to crickets:

  Their song pulses

            on a heartbeat

            echoes in cochlear spirals

            steadies the breath.

  Crickets are winter’s Persephone.

Too soon gone,

they grace the underworld.

 January

   Wed earth’s timeless round

  January’s silence cries

till frozen crystals fall

from opaque skies

 

and cardinals shine

as drops of blood

on a bridal hillside.

 

Poem from my book A Litany of Wild Graces

https://www.sharifaoppenheimer.org/sharifas-books

Free Image from Unsplash