Rx: Take 7 Sunbeams

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.”

I stand nowhere special (anywhere is sacred) 
and 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 exhales the fire, therefore
sprouts tremble with nectar around me,
braiding birth and death, 

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

Infinitesimal benevolent bacteria

wriggle in the belly of the earth,

moving 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.

My heart has many chambers, full and empty,
chalices of wanting, flowers of blood.

Rising, falling, my tummy is a wordless song,

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

I worship Shakti, the primeval dancer, 

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

Photo: by Northwest friend, Neil Dicke