7 Breaths of Spring

My religion is walking barefoot 

in wet moss unnaming the stars.

Every religion got started this way,

invented by a five-year-old

at the edge of a meadow.

On the first warm day of Spring,
after days of late Winter rain,
when the sky melts into
pools of cobalt, rivers of amber 

you could wade up to your knees in,
I follow the Rx of doctor robin:
“Take seven sunbeams,
then see how you feel.”

Standing nowhere special (anywhere is sacred) 
I inhale the fallen grace of April,

mud squished through my toes, the holiest 

anointing, a loam-gush from below,

lean back, guzzling body beams of star-breath

through my forehead, down the perineum,

out my naked soles: I Am 

the sun’s hollow path.

My skin exudes the fire, therefore
sprouts tremble with nectar, 

braiding birth and death, 

green-umber in thirsty pastures.
Every cell of dust inhales the golden sea.
I Am the fifth element.

Infinitesimal benevolent bacteria

wriggling in the belly of the earth,

move me to meditation.
They glisten, therefore I Am.

Beneath immortal stones, larvae uncurl,
awakening prayer, as my prayer 

awakens them: Transcendence is causation.

Once, forsythia were yellow waves of yearning

in the zeal of a seed, sewn

in the furrow between my thoughts.

The chasm of a peony proves that God

Is nothing less than ultra-violet pollen,
charged with the fragrance of human desire.

Every heartbeat is a prayer. 

This ventricle and atrium are chalices of wanting, 

flowers of blood, full and empty. 

This bursting plum bud startles Shiva from sleep. 

Who lies in purple tombs of bulbed iris, 

weeping for Isis, waiting for Ishtar, humming 

for the Magdalene? Is is my voice,

or the song of Osiris? Tammuz? Ram? 

After a long Winter’s journey, I know 

that darkness is not the absence of light, 

darkness is the womb of light. 

Flames of alyssum, hyacinth fire,

sequined velvet hummingbird who drinks 

from a bee balm grail. 

We worship Shakti, the primeval dancer, 

the formless one who takes the form
of soil, flesh, and the good worm.

If words be needed, let these suffice:
“I am the garden, You are the Spring.”

Photo: by Northwest friend, Neil Dicke