Shapeshifting

The wild dogs are there,

To bite away the parts

That no longer serve me. 

Each bite frees me from myself,

Until I am just the fire of spirit.

I rise from the ashes

Of a misguided past,

As a phoenix, reborn.

I am present.

I am aware.

I am a tree,

Whose roots reach deep into the earth.

My branches stretch up tall.

My leaves brush the heavens.

My core beats in time,

With Mother Earth.

Out heartbeats are the same.

I see through her eyes,

Each living thing,

Tinted with the hue of serenity.

Each flaw,

Makes us perfect.

The North

There is an urgent calling in the middle of the night,

That the north still owns my soul.

It is like the growling of a pack of restless, wild dogs.

It plucks me from tender sleep,

To a nightmarish land

Defined by isolation and the peculiar characters

The stillness draws.

Babies cry,

Wind howls,

And we are separated

By shifting, shattering ice,

And blowing storms.

I batten down the hatches of my mind,

To weather out the worst of it.

My spirit takes on the edge of survival.

I feel the frost-bitten burn of desperation.

Children cower,

Wolves circle,

Enter in the dark of a midwinter's day.

The north holds me in its frozen jowls,

And I can never slip away.

The Jagged Chevy Waltz

Meandering in the tangled corn,
I chanced on a barn, looking so forlorn.
What happened next, before my eyes
Was startling, such a surprise!
The music of radios and dusty old horns
Echoed out among the corns,
And suddenly tires started to spin.
The barn dance was about to begin.
Such a sight had never been seen,
By me or any human being.
Old cars from abandoned fields and lots,
Filed in to start the old fox trot.
It was a strange mix of sharp turns and halts,
The jagged Chevy waltz!