Early Morning
Bright moon still tugging the sky
as sun trickles in. The air is sweet and dense.
I am held in the slow illumination of this day.
High in the willow, the littlest birds –
the bushtits and hummingbirds –
prattle on, against the incessant knocking
of woodpecker. The quail, robins and occasional junco
prefer pecking the ground. Hundreds of other unseen birds
are calling in the dawn, weaving a tapestry of song.
Hours ago it was the owls whose voices
owned the night sky. It was the frogs and crickets and coyotes,
whose time had come.
Nothing here bores me. I read the sky from dawn til dusk.
I walk the same path again and again, witness to
the ever unfurling of the ground beneath me.
The redwood’s new growth looks just like feathers.
The toadstool a caricature of itself.
I could learn everything I need to know
from this land, practicing the person I long to be
in reverence.