Saturday, January 2, 2021

Tree Dreaming (by Christine Valters Paintner)

 

I swallowed a

seed last night

and dreamed

I planted myself

in a sea of loam

sometime before

the periwinkle dawn.

 

The awful ecstasy of

cracking open,

stretched taut between

dark earth embrace and

a crown of stars circling.

 

Time no longer

measured in clock ticks

but by arrival of a

glut of blossoms,

plump fruit hanging low,

 

followed by

death’s jeweled spectacle,

wind-ravished,

branches naked,

shadowed silhouette

in the feeble winter sun.

 

Let me linger here

with delights of

the grey squirrel’s

soft burrowing into

my body, all breath and fur,

a murmuration of starlings

filling my limbs with music,

chorus of wild irises’ golden

tongues wagging at my feet,

or the pleasures of

being rain-soaked

on a summer afternoon.

 

Let me sleep

a while longer.

 

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