Yellow doors hiss in half

He bounds inside, swallowed whole

I wave, smile on trembling lips

as #233 trundles my son

into the middle years

into the million

messy

miraculous

moments of becoming

*

I drop the smile and trudge uphill

heart racing with my own first day jitters

my own remembered messy middle

that maze of dark corners

curving toward blinding light

*

I reach the summit as the sun rises

and gasp

at the sudden contrast

brittle grasses backlit into beauty

blue mountain ridge crisp

dog’s hair haloed

my shadow lengthening ever West

*

I roll sage in my fingertips

inhale the velvety tang like smelling salts

to forestall a swoon as I re-live

my baby resting his bigger-than-mine head

in the crook of my neck

before he took flight

into this new day

*

I turn downhill to keep the rising sun

hovering on the horizon

on the edge of in between

that cusp of childhood days spent

building rock dams in a cold creek

as if we could be so bold as to

stop the flow

before the seasons shift

I squeeze my daughter’s doll-sized hand

as we stand on a pink precipice

“It’s hard to think about dying,” she says

then she lets go

flying over rocks to join her brother

their fragile wind-knotted manes

glowing gold between the thorns

-

I sit and think about death

envision it coming in

50 years

5 years

5 minutes

a practice that sometimes makes me

feel like I’m

falling

but more often makes me

feel like I’m

flying

because the edges grow clearer

the flowers softer

the ground more forgiving

with all its beetles and grubs

roots and mycelia

that keep us aloft

every second of every day

above our

molten magma iron

core

-

I sit and think about dying

while the birds trill erotic arpeggios

while you knot the ropes that anchor us

while the children leap into the sky

given, every so briefly,

this grace

from gravity

I plank over silty water

dangling tiny breasts over peaked rapids

then plunge face first into

a stream that was just snow

shrieking as I emerge

raw and red

as the bare dogwood

—

A squirrel scolds when I wade ashore

birthed anew this grey afternoon

now numb to nettle and thorns

I dress myself against

up-canyon winds

only to shuck layers aside

and submerge naked

again

—

Perhaps this longing for icy baptism

is because I am a double Pisces

a fish locked in the mountains

or is it because we all

look to water for solace

clouds

snow

succulents in the desert

because water cares not a whit

whether we are happy or sad

right or wrong

as it

falls

fills

flows

relentlessly to the sea

scouring in its wake

everything

and every

one

Last Saturday I crawled with strangers

amoeba-like, we shifted and shaped

a scarred dance floor our pond

a lone trombone our swan song

I laughed, they howled

we hummed and hymned and hummed

-

On Wednesday I joined a silvery school

in search of sober ecstasy

back to back to prevent collapse

we stacked limbs and shivered fingers

a collective release, a communal exhale

we danced and danced and danced

-

On Sunday I skipped down a pine-studded trail

the Equinox rushing loud in my veins

and told my friend about this spring need

to roll around on the ground and reach for green vines

she said: “my new mantra is to create, not curate”

yes and please and yes

-

Last night I somersaulted across the floor

dress billowing, all heartbeat bass and trilling treble

an exaltation of the halfway point, the midlife rebirth

my brain went quiet, my belly rebooted

the smiling clan spun me

around and under and in

-

This morning I stroked the dog’s soft back

my son’s ribs, my daughter’s lips, my husband’s tattoos

the orchid’s splendid satin bloom

I am a grove of quaking aspens

a puppy and a hummingbird

now and now and now again

Photo by Magenta Oceans.