Stay

lately, waking 
     comes early,  
and I am like 
     Venus, newly arrived 
  and poised 
     in the last of 
winter's dark night; 
       whiter, brighter 
  and finally revealed 

exuberant, 
       I dive into 
  the remembering 
         of rustling wings
    and sprouting seeds,
flowing sap and
       budding branches 
      

I float airy and bare 
    on the edge of 
  the dawn and
       into the morning’s 
  Spring chorus 
        that sings "stay" 
while I make up my mind 
        and sings "stay" 
     so I can love 
you even more 
        than I did before

Music pairing: The Pines: Hanging from the Earth

may these words bring truth and healing
through open hands and hearts
and then, let it flow back into our Mother Earth
for the love of all her beings.

The seed for this poem was planted by: Return #24 by Canisa Lubrin.

Return #24

up early I try not to give
away my hold on air, human’d
in me. I try like an impaled
Venus to not look down.
so if I fall in call it my fill
call it after-life, see something 
permanent, or call it a dispossession.
or that I’ve given up sitting, or 
knowing nothing about a way-
though, say out-come if I don’t 
come out. say my whole life is in
standing in the breeze, is in
this dare to fix some dream—

-Canisia Lubrin