Times at my grandmother's when I played
at the creek's edge feeling the water
running in my own veins,
Times at the sea shore when the crashing
surf lifted me from my self
sending me reeling into the sky, singing.
Times when I ran barefoot through the woods
behind my father's house like a deer
the worn path rushing up to meet my feet.

Those times were this moment,
as real as the dew
which now dampens my toes,
as real as the wild turkeys grazing
on fallen apples in the meadow ahead.

I walk without thinking
where I am going,
eyes open but looking up at the sky,
not at the dirt road under my feet.
I hike the woods in the wake of deer
who chew leaves ten feet from me,
I climb to the mountain's peak,
where five mountains spill together --
dappled colors sliding into the valley below.

There, on the edge,
the trees have let down
their colored clothes;
they lay heaped in papery piles
beneath them.
In their nakedness, they are
somehow more beautiful
--the bare bones of branches stark
against blue sky
--planted skeletons
that grow thicker, stronger
as year gives way to the rolling of years.

I step out of my own clothes, then,
and leave them in wrinkled piles
beneath me.
I walk to the cliff's edge, immersed
in shivering, immersed
in this moment.

I open my hands
to stroke the air
root my feet in the cool ground.
I sway in the wind,
my hair tangles around my face
covering my eyes.

And I lay down there,
on the moist, sweet-smelling leaves;
they stick to me like wet gauze,
like new skin forming.
I stare out into the layered clouds
--I hear the crow call.

The spirits circle around me
laughing in my ear, calling my name.
I lay on the mountain's lip,
arms and legs flung out wide,
exposed, naked,
my face toward the sky,
My body tingles then grows numb
under me.

I draw myself into my heart with a breath,
open the wings of my spirit
and, singing,
I take flight.

*an "aubade" is a morning song.

All poems copyrighted by the author, Tracey Besmark 1997©