A New Poem: Elemental

Here is a companion piece to my last post - a poem that came out of the Writers' Intensive.

The wind is my lover.

Sometimes he sweeps my mind clean.

Sometimes he caresses my cheek.

Sometimes he is gone.

 

The water is my mother.

She rocks and holds me as if I were a child.

Unlike the wind, she is constant,

and I cannot live without her.

Every morning and evening I I look to the sky, to wind’s home

and admire its changing face.

But water is my solace.

 

Let the bed remain rumpled and unmade.

I have more important things to tend to –

the flickering candles, the morning birdsong, the blank page.

 

I once watched new land being born,

lava pouring down the pali and across the old land

to pour into the sea, creating new earth in a fanfare of pluming smoke.

Why do I think of this now?

Air and water grew lonely for fire and earth.

 

So, here they are, all assembled, my friends, my family.

Fire says, “Where would you be without me?”

Earth replies, “Show-off!”

Fire retorts, “Look who’s talking?  What do you call what you do

with springtime?”

Water flows in, “There, there everyone.”

Air breezes by, almost, but not quite, blowing out the candles.