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Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

~ a wild and sacred journey

Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

Monthly Archives: August 2015

Crisp morning

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, nature, poems, poetry, wonder

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Crisp morning,

Scrub jay tapping acorn into the ground,

Autumn, you flirt.

Blueberries in peace

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in About, movement, nature, poems, poetry

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Wanting to eat blueberries in peace,

I continue walking.

“Welcome to the Labyrinth.”

As if I needed the sign.

Parking bum on stone

among alyssum, chamomile and

orange blooms of nasturtium,

bees waft in and buzz by.

Sun warms back, verbena wavers,

dragonfly hovers a while.

Between lavender and me

a garden’s worth of world greens up

in the closing weeks of summer.

Holding body

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in death, nature, poems, poetry, transition

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Holding body 

of dead hawk still warm,

the day’s tedium and irritation forgotten.

Death throws light, as life offers life.

Carrying bustle to calm

one of feather, talon, beak and bone,

expired oak reaches out arms.

Here, by trunk split to earth-

as if through lightning visitation-

raptor rests to place

without roadway and hustle,

whole in transition.

Scavengers will find their next meal,

minerals will return to dust.

Envisioned flight prepares to come again.

Body speaks loud

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in beauty, becoming, courage, freedom, learning, movement, poems, poetry, strength, transition

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And when you have to tuck your beauty away from the world to be left alone,

Or don barbs to let it be known you can be armed,

questions come-

do you engage, or duck and cover, or walk away?

Do you laugh or poke back or disappear?

In the freeze or fight or flight, where do you hold?

Words

stumble.

Momentum and strength kept you moving yet

look

look hard at the toll.

What you thought you could take,

and exactly what you have taken,

carry a cost your body will explain.

Body speaks loud.

Drop a sledgehammer on the used way,

watch a smile curl at the sight of its destruction.

Tools this grand, and in capable hands,

will topple the castle the dream 

along with those miles of manipulation.

What you’ve got here doesn’t come free.

And it’s yours.

Underworld

11 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in becoming, dark, learning, listen, movement, night, poems, poetry, transition

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Tumbling into

an underworld.

Sound stolen in the descent,

movement coming from

an unknown what.

Vanished light and a search yet begun.

A wisp of swirling wind.

Inhabiting a different body,

a novice of winged creation must

forget the familiar. 

Hanging topside down from leafless tree

amid dark layered upon dark,

sonar registers obstacles and surfaces

of a territory

summoning,

expecting

arrival and exploration.

Travel here is not optional.

Curling claws around smooth limb,

with wings wrapped securely,

head dangling,

blood circulating,

there can be a reaching

for nothing.

Required senses develop.

Survival.

Still, suspended, and waiting

in dangerous territory

while skills emerge.

Quieting impulse,

lets

a silenced knowing 

arise

for one newly born.

Possession 

09 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in beauty, becoming, dark, learning, night, poems, poetry, Sight

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Enter the woods, Young Woman,

and know

the Devil hears every footstep.
Each snapping twig signals 
your approaching Light-
and stirs

His bloodthirst.
Whether your flame flickers,
or extinguishes,
He cares not.
This game is
Possession.
And without your eyes open,
you are prey.
The seduction will dance you
until your feet bleed,
and your heart tears.
But
with instinct, wild watchfulness,
and a night-march gathering
of your oceanic value,
his charm cannot destroy
the most tender and loving aspects
your clear spirit offers this woolly world.
Stake your boundary
and protect
what you long to give away.
Leave the woods.
Trade, dear Beauty,
youthful innocence,
that dwelling ignorance,
for the Power that awaits you-
something His nearness would never
allow you the sovereignty

to have.

the twisting road

02 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in learning, movement, nature, peace, poems, poetry, the road

≈ Comments Off on the twisting road

Drove the twisting road,

wound blind curves,

to somewhere once called home-

a place sweetness and tragedy meet,

a location of extremes.

Towering oaks with lobed leaf arch

toward golden grass whose seed heads nod,

obscuring the path bobcat walks.

Sky,

in blueness or star,

remains sharp.

Flies enter nose and ears,

fiery poison oak berries.

Frost will make its claim,

will lay this landscape bare.

Returning marks a turning.

The hole I’ve fallen in,

with earthen walls solid and cool,

holds today’s bones and muscle.

Eyes train upward,

restful,

knowing, this time, the visit

washes memories out

without carrying me away.

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