In a green house I dithered and grew.
Soft hands and sharp elbows
shaped a head full of wonderment and worry.
In root-stained blackwater, wood frogs waited.
Under cedars, under oaks,
through ferns and trilliums, a breeze hallooed.
On the black rocks, taps and rushes of cold springs
filled my ears, flowed in my mouth.
Red dust shook down from my hair.
In a boat, on a lake full of moonrise and loon cries,
stars showered down around me,
piercing into the earth below the water.
On this red sand, on these black rocks,
water will take me into the land,
into the shadow-filled waters.
United In Defense of the Water