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To the Earth
Forever Turning
by Bill Cowee
In a fire scar near
Woodfords,
California
I come to the Sierra to shed urban skin,
to put on the exultant joy of mountains,
to give up pain like a Santa Cruz madrone
peels thick layers of bark in urgent wind.
I observe rabbit fear at the break
of thickets, find the snake discarded
skin in the spring, see weather caught
in pools of rainwater, spring-fed
tarns drifting cool in willow and aspen.
I lie with white-tailed doe surrounded
deep in meadow, listen to the trickle
brooks pitch on the run from ice fields
to spring creek banks. I am distracted
by the aggressive yellowjacket and deer fly,
awaken to winds tearing their way
down the canyons of Jeffery pine.
The ground lies bare and black now,
gone to ash in an alchemy of thirst
and fire. Come now, survivors,
sow hope in seeded cheat grass, thin roots
clutching dust until grey sage can muster
from a rocky outcrop breaching earth.
Hard and forgiving, the foundation braces
beneath soil until granite thrusts up,
shatters, falls to lie in its own scree.
Even rock shall be replanted with lichen,
the crop of sand gathered in its own time.
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Divination
by Billy Newman
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