Textures and Patterns

 from a recent trip to Blackwater Falls Nat'l Park:

    

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too.

I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.”

- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

Who Can Ride the Dragon?

like a death, this is the true beginning

drag your body to the altar

quality of sweetness, rooted in sacrifice

drop down into the silence

healing by fire

eludes language

the doorkeeper

together in the woods

at the root of our own

she is the passion

swept away in a hurricane

visions in detail

all who dwell

the sacred balance

the sun goes down

and celebration

something in it, offering

chance to let go

return to the sacred

laid down her yarn.