Forget Black

The cracks, even the cracks of her feet were black with earth.

Her hair matted with black and hanging limp and wildly at her ears.

Her hands were stained black and there were small scars where the work showed through.

And just when it seemed she couldn’t get any blacker,

her heart stood still with the black mud.

Her eyes shed black tears that smudged her filthy cheeks.

Her mouth oozed.

She had stayed too long in the dark wet. She was one of them.

Yet there she crouched. Sobbing and shaken.

Her precious work torn asunder by those who spoke sharp words of machines.

All she knew lay raped and stranded in the bright sun.

It would be theirs tomorrow. Neat and shiny.

It would be organized and proper and clean.

It was always so sad to see them like this. Naked and lost.

No words would come to stay them from her treasure.

She would silently suffer.

It might kill her….

Yes, she would die if not for the others. They always come.

They take back their own into the dank woods.

Who knows what horrors lie there.

God it must be dreary and strange.

Oh, look, it must be time to go. The sun is sinking.

 

 

Healing…

The mother tree stood in silence somewhere in the middle of a long forgotten hammock glade. The morning dew lit brightly by the dawn. Crystals hanging from her leafy fingers. I said a secret kind of prayer as I approached. Something from my childhood. Not wanting to disturb her slumber lest her limbs began to thrash wildly like before.

Mother

Withered and rough, I felt her furrowed bark cut into the skin of my thighs as I began to climb. Eyes still wet with disappointment and fear. Heart full of shadows.

Reaching higher and higher looking down occasionally to see if anything had followed me I knew I was almost there. I calmed myself so as not to rush. One slip from her heights could leave bruises best not explained. 

I found my space worn smooth by years of reverence. I took my usual position on my belly, limbs hanging loosely, face pressed against her bark. I would remain until my tears stopped, until my pain dulled, until I smiled. Her arms rocking me gently with the breeze. Her scent filling my nostrils with that loamy warmth.

Eyes dried, heart lighter, healed.

Fly like an eagle

Coolest video ever — It’s an eagle flying through the Alps with a camera attached to its back. Enjoy!

http://www.thelocal.fr/20130918/video-viewers-blown-away-by-birds-eye-view-of-chamonix

*Note: you have to scroll down the page a little bit to find the video.

Oak

Bleached by sunlight

Her fractured remains littered the banks of the brown river.

Twisted bones bleached white from long days spent worshipping the sun

now tossed about after the storms of summer.

Sluggish sounds of lapping waves the only reverie.

Her age is unknown. Her birth unwritten.

It was so long ago that no one remembers her absence.

They remember her cool sheltering arms.

They remember her strength.

And they smile as they paddle by.

 

The Clearing

http://www.feardoesnotexistinthisdojo.com

 

Crouching low I hid neath the brambles. Scratched and torn skin red with rage.

I watched as they ripped it asunder. No respect. No fear.

Each screaming heart gasping air. Roots barren and drying.

Shattered crowns, withered leaves, twisted souls.

The breeze blew where it shouldn’t.

Smell of earth where is wasn’t.

They looked happy as tears stained my dirty face.

Proud, they stood in the clearing. As if they had done something great.

Storm

Across the field they came.

Slamming into the ground and raising the dust that had settled over thousands of years.

Wetting things cracked and dead. Making black puddles on the land.

Things that had long since given up emerged. Beady eyes shone red in the darkness.

Things cried out. Things older than the earth itself.

Everything awoke to the sound of thunder.

The storm approaches.

Kristen presents to Master Gardeners of Sarasota County!

Today I had the pleasure of presenting our stream classification study to a wonderful group of people – the Master Gardeners of Sarasota County, Florida. It turns out there are Master Gardeners all throughout Florida. The program is run through the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). Its mission is to train a core of volunteers to assist the county extension agent in delivering information to residents on how to design, plant, and care for their plants and landscapes in a Florida-Friendly way. Please visit their website to find out more about this AWESOME program:
http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/mastergardener/about/index.shtml

I’m hoping I was able to inspire some Master Gardeners to get outdoors and enjoy our state’s amazing resources. Maybe they’ll even become Chicks with Ticks (since many of them were women)! The Gardeners definitely inspired me to turn my black thumb green, and even gave me a couple free plant clippings (I’ll let you know how that goes). Thank you so much to Bob at Sarasota County’s IFAS extension office for inviting our team to speak. Always a pleasure talking about what we do and love because…
“In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.” – Baba Dioum

Wild Man

Neath the loamy earth he lay

Slumbering

clothes all wet and soaked with clay.

Biding time ’til sunshine brings

the warmth to reach up into spring.

Brown and ugly, lonely, snuggling, only buried in the garden.

Down and covered, watered, smothered, soon the earth no longer hardened.

Up and up he dreams while sleeping.

Tendrils climbing, grasping, creeping

Green and tender arms of shoots.

For now the wild thing is only roots.

Morphology (repost from January 2012)

I stand just knee-deep in the water

Watch and smile as the current flows by

And I ache just to think of the fishes

Swimming by as I ruffle their sky

Lake County Illinois

How I long to be one with the riffles

Lilting wetly and moving the sand

Making fun of the footsteps of mortals

Whose futile work falls on the land

Then I spy in a pool small swamp darters

Smiling keenly and moving about

Knowing nothing is ever forever

As my hand moves the lilies about

It’s so tempting to join in the living

Feel the tug of the algae beneath

Lose myself to these waves of abandon

Sink my soul, sink my hands, sink my feet

I lie down in the life-giving wetness

Let it slide over my tired life and limb

Close my eyes to the bright rays of sunshine

Grab a fistful of muck in the dim

From Professional Bow Hunters Society website

I grow roots fins and gills as I lie here

I breathe rain and the muck warms my scales

Then I wriggle away with my soul mates

As a bowfin nips hard at my tail.

I escape to the pools and the thalwegs

I give over to point bars and runs

Leave behind all the worry and sadness

To the men toiling hard in the sun

Waterling

Tumbling, truckling, the tickling stream passed clear over my wriggling toes.

Cold it was. And hard were the stones under my bones.

Waterling

Dappled shafts of sneaky sunlight snuck through the laughing leaves.

There I lay

Just born

Listening

Naked

Alone and wanting for nothing.

Breathing spray and smiling.

A wild thing.

The waterling.