Dying into Life

 

April is a month of dying

into the flaming fire,

the white heat of spring.

 

You circle overhead

as the Hawk does in my dreams…

Broad russet wings and tail,

a golden eye

piercing illusions

of separateness

intertwining the two –

Winter and Summer-

Both, Cycles of Becoming.

 

April is a month of dying

into the flaming fire,

the white heat of spring.

 

Bittersweet flaming orange heat

and bleached blue sky

bend olive trees

with thorns, as leaves unfurl

casting sage green

shadows over

serpentine waters.

Willows glow –

burnishing gold wands

at dusk.

 

April is a month of dying

into the flaming fire,

the white heat of spring.

 

Communing underground

thirsty cottonwoods

gulp much needed water,

give thanks for

Red Willow River

as do I.

 

April is a month of dying

into the flaming fire,

the white heat of spring.

 

If only rain would come,

these mighty trees

with elephantine arms

would surely

drop pendulous russet flowers,

uncurl scalloped leaves

inviting us to sit awhile

under rough textured bark

to listen carefully,

to reflect upon this canopy

woven out of hearts

murmuring over our heads.

 

April is a month of dying

into the flaming fire,

the white heat of spring.

 

Secrets are revealed

among arching tree boughs,

trunks, roots, and fungi,

truths we cannot bear to hear.

 

Dying into life

is a message

we need to feel.

 

 

Postscript:

 

Today is my father’s birthday…this morning I honored his life sitting by the river before dawn. I waited for the sun to rise through silver clouds… but the sky turned gray.

 

The day I buried my brother, hawks perched in bare branched trees around Trillium rock. One morning I spied a hawk driving to work. He lay lifeless, every feather intact as if asleep, by the side of the road. I stopped, gathering the dead, but still warm bird, gently in my arms. I would cremate him in my wood stove when I reached home… I didn’t know yet that my mother had died during the previous night. Another hawk almost flew into my window one September when a baby I longed for was born. How could I have known I would lose this child too?