Pine

Yesterday,  a few hours after the day had split in two and deposited me on the waning side,  a bird of prey taloned a saffron banner from my heart and pulled it treeward. Hand over hand, eyes closed,  I pulled up to the resined branch and tasted the soundscape. 

Wind and gristle, drum and thistle,  a thousand bodies below me feasted and and fasted and prayed as the milky way unfurled to the horizon and splayed errant light at the giant’s roots.

I cupped the moon and ladled the sky in.  Stars and light, patterns and principles,  and so much space it dribbled over the cup’s opalescent side,  swallowing resin from the Ponderosa and looking for more of itself on the way down.

I played god while the lucidity lasted, using time’s arrow like a giant sewing needle to move the scene back and forward and back again,  and watched the bodies below as wrinkles chased age spots over dewey newborn skin and disappeared into bacteria’s reliably hungry maws.

Today, swaddled in Id and instinct,  I smell the pine and take another few steps forward,  looking for more grace and vision in the mundane.