Creation Day

Out of the van window

parallel yellow lines weave

and then break into dashes

blinking on and off

like numbers on an alarm clock

snooze

the shush of tires

snooze

the swoosh swoosh of oncoming cars

snooze again

the conversation in the van echoes

like voices coming through tin cans connected by a string

then I'm awake in the midst

of the steep timbered slopes

rock outcroppings jut up

like still frames of waves

about to break

their sheer, corrugated faces

hang brown and gold and green

with moss and patches of gray rock

that sparkle in the afternoon sunfire,

hang like movie screens

with the sunset projected in true color.

I am here, in this hillside

in this sunset watching myself

on a living screen

the double doors of my eyes

swing wide and color comes rushing in

and in and in, a gold-red river

pouring through my irises

resizing trees-trunks breaches and leaves-

their bodies hands and speech 

(to have and to hold) I hear

everything has always been speaking to me

(in sickness and in health)

a language of living hues

(for richer or poorer)

inscribing on my eyes

(for better...) 

a creation story ('til death...)

can't part, death can't understand

death's clumsy hands

fumbling through thousands of tree voices

thundering over the hills

their words to the whole happily unhidden world

I am these hills, these trees, these voices

and (I do)

I walk through myself