LIFT OFF

And the fears that once held me so captive, no longer chain my soul.  I'm learning to dance and sway to the tune of your rejection, to sit and experience the bite of your judgment.  You're invited to come and you are welcome to go.  My talons no longer sharply embedded and clinging to any premeditated plans.  My beak closed, ever-ready for the moment.  My expansive vision remains, only now I honor my knowing and the wisdom that is my birthright.  In my rebirth, however, I've slithered into a metamorphosis.  Quetzacoatl has risen.

Converging 

Death comes
as a welcome gift, its plumage outstretched
I wrap it around my chest.
swaddling the stilled baby,
there is no fear to be found, no wailing to be heard.

You offer ceremony, and I sink into 
our thick silence.  Bullfrogs illuminate 
the winter night with their resonance as a waxing, 
crescent moon hangs high above the sycamores. 
You dig, and I kneel.  You cut away, feathers and talons, 
and I smudge the air between us.

Time, a fluid river, runs between the child 
who ran through these same coastal desert hills and the woman 
who now offers life right back to the source from where it came.  Body to body, soul to soil.  One and the same, 
we are.  Together,
we sing the refrain.  

 (*"Converging" is a re-post from January 2012)