Reeds

 I am the daughter of willows and reeds

Of sandy riverbeds and dry canyons,

The whispered voices of my ancestors

Reverberating off sheer cliff walls to the stars beyond time.

I am the child of firelight, of story, of song,

Of barefoot dance on delighted, playful, welcoming earth.

I am kin of quick elk and solid bear and mighty mountain lion

Keen ears, sharp eyes, body nestled in the cool of soft tuff caves,

A long-ago gift of our volcanic mother.

I am the issue of winds and waters,

Of playful movement of breeze through branches, of gentle ripple over ancient bedrock.

I am the pinks and blacks and tans of basalt, obsidian, and pumice,

The crimson head of the finch, the blue back of the trout, the green tail of the lizard.

I am the color of a land that will not be subdued, come what may,

a land that will live and give only in sacred reciprocity.

I am the offspring of hardship and communion,

Of fierce, powerful fight and brave, trusting surrender.

I am the union of belonging and loneliness

Of rhythms and seasons and ebbs and flows and persistence and change.

I am the flesh of new and old, of supple and scar,

My cells, each rafts, carrying both grandmother and granddaughter,

Profound wisdom of age and blessed wonder of youth,

Each at the ready, eager to rise up in useful purpose.

I am the fire that scorches, the fire that rages, the fire that destroys, the fire that renews.

I am the flood that drowns, the flood that carves, the flood that cleanses, the flood that recreates.

I am the smoke and the light, the cloud and the rainbow, the craggy mountain and the verdant valley.

I am the sun. 

I am the moon.

I am the dust of the cosmos, stars lighting my footpath.

I am the daughter of willows and reeds,

bent and broken open by elements unconstrained.

And that breaking I thought would be my death, that separation of stalk from stalk, spine snapped, vamp hanging low by tattered green flesh, xylem splayed open to the harshness of air,

That breaking I mourned and suffered and grieved, that felt unending, perennial, eternal,

That breaking open has become my beautiful reformation.

For a broken reed, rooted in fertile soil, washed again by the gently flowing streams of time and care and love,

a broken reed, moved by the breath of the willow becomes an instrument producing the holiest of music.