STORM

Thunderheads, building flat black mesas in a sky
Not yet gone from blue
Kachina whirls bleed and breathe down
Ropes of west wind weaving songs of
Earth

Green of pine and green of maple
Green of cottonwood and Aspen turning,
Green of leaves of olive and emerald stop
Suddenly suspended without breath
Earth’s air grown still and soundless
A strange swimming amber, quivering under
Sky

From a blueblack bruised horizon
The southern sky swells across the heavens
Pregnant with potential of pitch-black pearls of rain
A silvered skeleton shocks the shadowed summer sky
Bare winter tree of incandescent light
Energy explodes it’s instant searing branches
Galvanizing
Earth
to
Sky

A hush on the lioncolored hills
Breathless the mountains of jade
All moisture could be swallowed
In a fickle lick of wind
Followed by a phantom too familiar . . .
The scent of smoke . . .
But today the capricious summer symmetry
Splits the sky
And sudden silver sheets of blessings pour
Singing, bringing
Sky to
Earth

Bends the leaves and beats the ground
Tattoo drumming calling water spirits home
Drinks the thirsty ground quick sated
Pooling, puddling, splashing, splattering
Shafts of sunshine carve
The blackened clouds to shreds
Turning air to shivering crystal
And color spills like wealth across the sky
With wings of gold, here Iris dances
To bless this sacred land once more
From Cascade to Siskiyou, Siskiyou to Cascade
Tthe bright bridge bends
Uniting
Earth and Sky


©Edwina Peterson Cross