The Cloud Person is a Crane?

(On the way to the Bosque…)

 

Meandering through

heart shaped

Cottonwood leaves

crunching under foot

Dream words surface.

“The Southwest is Drying Up.”

Didn’t I know that?

There must be more to this story…

 

Beneath trees and scrub

a rustling root thought:

If only I could feel

what I think I know –

clear this conditioned mind.

My body,

Earth’s body

echo identical

Truths.

One encompasses the whole,

the other a fragment.

 

Something is walking beside me.

 

To feel a cloud

Presence hovering

is no illusion.

Still air moves with me.

 

Something is walking beside me.

 

The Heart of Nature

strikes a primordial drum –

sings a song of Belonging.

Midnight fades..

Dawn breathes pale pink and gold…

Even in my yearning

a prehistoric Crane cries out:

“A Cloud Person

Loves you.”

 

 

Working Notes:

 

“This is a great poem even if it isn’t” I heard myself say!

 

Laughter bubbled up.

 

True, I realized because poetry arises from the heart…and always addresses truth of one kind or the other. That’s what makes it great.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

Yesterday in the Bosque while walking through the scrub and under the cottonwoods I gradually became aware of a presence of some kind that was hovering around me like a cloud. I heard and saw 2 beloved cranes that I consider my spirit birds – whatever that means – and was feeling quite thankful in general. I never feel alone in the woods at home or here the Bosque but this feeling of personage was different – almost like someone invisible was walking with me. And  I have never experienced this feeling before with so much awareness. What was this presence? The trees, the air, the fact that the Bosque is my refuge? My own soul? Possibly spirit? I don’t know but I trusted its beneficence…

 

This morning I also had a dream that said the “southwest” was drying up – since this is obviously the direction we are going in – the dream couldn’t have meant that unless the Earth is reinforcing what I think I know? And I doubt that. I was thinking about this dream while in the Bosque noticing again that walking early in the morning seems to lessen what feels like a negative dream effect.

 

Finally, after writing this poem I believe I unraveled the meaning behind the dream I had this morning.