The green clings
Tenuous
Tenacious
To a billion years
Of granite and gneiss
And green grew only
For half of that
While here am I
Where the Earth collides
With itself
To raise mountains
From sundered plains
Now left to wonder
If dinosaurs and woolly mammals
Wandered landscapes
Much different than this
At Gros Morne
A place that just feels
Older than time
I reach for the sky
Its light
Its heat
Bathe in the glory
Of nature’s bounty
Alive to the moment
I love the big guys
The established ones
Those who’ve changed the world
Become big through accomplishment
But age has changed my focus
To the little guys
With all their potential and possibility
The ones who’ll change this world to the next
I disturb the crows
Who’ve been picking the mussels clean
Below the high tide line
I scramble through the scattered rocks
Looking for barnacles
In arrays of frameable form
Until the crows
Decide they want
Their little peninsula back
Well, I did manage
To get this shot
Before retreating
White water falls away
A stream of sibilance
Embraced in verdance
Here I, find peace in this day
Even as the rain
Drizzles through the canopy
Embraced in patterns of nature
I dismantle patterns of self
Trouble falls away
On a sun saturated plain
The things made by hands and their machines
Grow weary with time
Soon to be retrieved
By the Earth
And the things which need
No self-consciousness or master
To suffuse the landscape
With life and beauty
The pickup passes
Flicking a long tail of dust
Which prairie winds
Spread like golden icing
Across a latent landscape
Under sunset sky
Farmland is always a realm
Of hope and promise
And possibility
While also of heartbreak
And tragedy and ruin
As is any venture reliant
On the whims of nature
A single storm defines
The outcome of an entire season
For good or ill
Is saviour or saboteur
Or, as here, in Empress
No storm comes at all
And the glory of a golden-hour transformation
Only masks the calamity of dust
The infant Earth
Burps up her core
Lays down a shield of stone
Comes the ice
With crushing force
Carves relief into the shield
Finally, life returns
In league with time and weather
Draws detail upon the lines
Here I stand
On ancient land
To capture nature’s beauty
The day’s last rays
Fall on rocky shores
Of some
Forgotten cove
Alone with thoughts
And seabird cries
A rush of waves
Fall against the shoal
The errant noise of restless brain
Soon enough is quelled
As nature sets her subtle pace
Gentle on my soul
Pix to Words 