Three poems by Sara Wright

Spirits of the Forest

In Forest Presence

I listen,

 leaves

and needles rustle

Voices

Hum inside

Hemlock bark

 sounding

if only humans

 would listen

Incantations

 erupt beneath

the forest floor

wrapped

in a tapestry of threads

millions of miles

of white

 cottony intentions

interevntions?

made manifest

by Raven and

Owl

I listen….

Rapture

is Stillness

within,

without

Only then

 do birds

reveal

the Secrets

we crave

Spirits of the Forest

Oh yes,

I listen.

I finish this poem and read Janet Rudolph’s essay on labyrinths on FAR  (6/29/22) and am struck by the synchronicity between this essay and this spontaneous poem that appeared moments before when someone sent me a picture of myself on a bird walk in the forest. Sometimes I have the sense that my thoughts overlap with those essays that appear on FAR in uncanny ways. I wonder if this happens with others?

Janet quoted Teresa of Avila words: “If we learn to love the earth, we will find labyrinths, gardens, fountains and precious jewels! A whole new world will open itself to us. We will discover what it means to be truly alive.”

This has certainly been true for me.

Twilight Prayer for July

Owls,
Saw whet
Barred
Spirits of the night
High in the canopy
Hidden from sight
serenade
slippery moon.

Listen!
Messages abound.
Benign Spirits of the forest
interrupt
 Summer’s 
Chaotic pattern
(a destructive human
field that is
Part of the whole)
Embrace, protect,
Cool
Burning coals
quell
Flames
erupting from within –
without.
Harden anguish
into jewels
falling
from the sky.

‘Nice’ is surface varnish 
lacking
substance 
a hole is torn

 in earth’s fabric
truth denied.
Voices loom below
 chaos, rage, incineration…
How does one make sense
out of such fractures?
Crooked mud
a sizzling sun star
I do not know.
Waters no longer flow.
Mute
Where is the rain?
relief from

 charred remains?

Postscript 1

These two poems address the human chaos I witness around me and also experience within during the hot summer months. They also expose the lies that lay beneath the surface of  “nice” – a place where human betrayal thrives. Nice turns on a dime and whenever I attempt to cut through deceit I am the one blamed. Patriarchy thrives on lies…

__________________________________________________________

Butterfly Wounding

Bittersweet orange

invokes wounding

past torment endured

at the hands of those

who would harm.

Air is lightened,

cleansed by absence

Trees rejoice

Slaughter shifts perspective

 Despair presses Diamond.

Fritillary seeks

 her flower

lover in waiting

Tongue seeking.

The two, Butterfly

and Weed lay eggs

 One will be dead in weeks

Blazing blooms live on

Seeds of the Future

held firm by roots

an abundance of nourishment

Gifted from below.

 Postscript 2

Every summer I wait for the Great Spangled Fritillary.. first the painted ladies come, admirals follow and then the swallowtails. This year viceroys made an appearance and of course, as the insect icon everyone has eyes on, monarchs will be arriving shortly, although in how many numbers we don’t know. Saving one species without saving the forests and meadows won’t work, but most don’t recognize this truth. We seem stuck in the think globally act locally meme, so outdated now. Acting globally means saving the forests streams and meadows that we destroy every single day so any species can survive…

Meanwhile I’ll take the Fritillaries that roam through the forest as I do. In our own ways we both seek out sweet nectar from wildflower meadows, water from streams, protection from trees….

Finally arriving here when butterfly weed blooms I am enthralled and can spend hours watching these butterflies drinking their fill and wondering what they may be saying to one another as they gather in communion sharing precious food….

A Meditation on Life.

I am also struck by butterflies arriving as a favorite summer insect, particularly those monarchs who now adorn wall paintings as they once were scratched on the walls of prisons no child would survive.

A holocaust is occurring as I write – Too many species are disappearing before we even know they exist. Beneficial insects have vanished throughout the world at an alarming rate; one third of the root of our food chain is gone… (conservative estimate)

 Insects, animals, trees, the rest of nature, and women….our rights to exist are at risk. Is  annihilation the goal?

When I engage with the fritillaries I sense the fragility of all life, feel my own losses keenly, mourn the women who betray and are betrayed, while praying for those I love to get what they need.

Death of one kind or the other seems to be on the horizon everywhere.

But the fritillaries gathering “at the well show me how to live.

BIO: Sara Wright is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.