Mother Earth Sleeps Here

Deep beneath the Pacific Northwest’s
Clouded, streaming sun,
Lies a giant Sequoia Redwood
Twenty feet circumference’d,
Six stories tall
As if Mother Nature, yawned
Eons ago,
Having suddenly grown tired
From making all her Earthen Wares,
And so readily dipped
Herself
Into a bed of reddened clay
Right here in my tiny, fenced backyard
Burrowed down deep
Her giant, mineral-rich frame
Leaving only one grand, wooden arm
(Right too, I’d like to think)
Extended in a stately reach,
A stationary, stalked salute
To her celestial en-sistered stars.

As I look out of my window
(One of the tiny, pin-pricked holes in this shoebox,
Crucial for letting in a little light and air)
Far below her shadowy
Canopy of spindled fingers,
As I rake her perpetually raining blanket of needles,
And dig my fingers into the top shelf of her cold, composted soil,
Attempting to imitate what comes so naturally to her,
With my amateur’s murderous touch
And laughably green-less thumbs,
As I barbeque and change clothes,
Dance and nurse,
Eat sushi and curse a bad hand of cards,
Eventually growing old and brittle,
Becoming as feeble as my (wall)-paper palace,
I hope that she’ll keep offering a friendly wave,
A gentle embrace that reaches full-round our house,
The crawl space pressed upon her horizontal womb,
Left arm gripped tight on the drainage system
Tucked dark beneath the street.

Even if she’s jutting forth
God's own, personal sign language,
a clear indication of, “Stop!
Venture NO further,
Tread lightly ‘round my roots
If you want to keep on reproducing,
let alone breath this quality air
I’m making 'round the clock!”
I view it kindly.
Like an "off-the-record" warning from a rounded, old cop
Who no longer cares about making his monthly ticket quota.

I think of her gently,
Always,
Loving her long, shapely shadow as she cradles us,
A cement foundation for her head dress,
The hardened, man-made crust encasing her earthen skull
All this amuses her, I think.
(Trend-setter that she is, she may like a mortared hat.)
She could break free so easily.
She could rise up and shake off shingles
Like weightless flecks of dust,
Play “kick the can” with our pretty, shuttered cottage,
Shake the tree house like a cup of dice,
Roll off tickling raccoons and shrieking owls,
Splatter mice like rain drops
As she gathered height,
Straightening her gorgeous spine
Up into the stratosphere.

Every time my fingers fly 'cross piano keys,
When I’m lying warm in bed,
When I write or read a book,
Or cook or wash the makeup from my face,
I feel her presence softly in this space,
The fleeting home we’ve staked in
This wooded world she so keenly crafted.

Like God, she’ll remember us, won’t she?
Our garden that would never take,
The fence that wobbled with each breeze,
The crying babies, the screaming matches,
The laughter poured from opened windows,
Lights left on and T.V. blaring
With no regard to a prone, sleeping Goddess,
just one level below,
So patient and preposterously powerful?

I regard the length of her thick, barked arm,
The wave of her digited branches,
The loss of needles, soft hair like mine,
Falling out in clumps when she’s distressed,
The way she houses all the homeless
And braces out the cold.
I grow weary on her behalf,
Knowing how long she’s kept
Such a mighty appendage majestically upright.
I love her long, unbroken shadows,
Her shoulder’s brute, poised strength,
Her quiet disposition and willingness to share
All the God-given treasures
That are rightfully hers
To have and to hold.

If she drops this pose, we will surely be
Brilliantly
Smashed to smithereens--
Make no doubt about
The impact of her tall-treed clap
And it’s standing ovation-al ability
To erase my cutesy, speckled life
As I comfortably know it,
The blessed future I hope to slowly unearth.
Yet, I have to think she so deeply deserves
My unabashedly sweet backyard,
This quaintly pretty resting place,
A final repose, perhaps,
For both of us Mothers some day,
Forever and always,
Way too soon.