She walks in from the hole

We soared around the hole, watching her balance at the edge
we were the sights that she saw, the breath that she breathed
only the smells were not ours, as we flew straight up
into the blackened cloud banks
like shrikes screeching The collective Truth in the echoing empty sky.

that dark void echoing rhetoric language,
spells of smoked gouda and orange spice
nourishing the seed of her womb
seeing what they see
breathing what they breathe
she has that human quality

Naked she came, naked she walks; not a feather to shield her from the sun,
not a hide to shelter her, not a wing she could put her long neck in.
Who is this other woman? And why are there so many of her?
These are questions Raven never asks, but simply accepts:
we are all multiplicity, alive, alive, alive.

throughout the dawn
shadows clothe her nakedness
and the aroma from the cedar grove

We smell nothing.
We hear the laughter of two (or three or multiplicity).
This reminds us she is many and will always be.
Like us, shrikes and ravens flat against the luminescent sky.

mingles in with her laughter
and for a moment
you are reminded of yourself
that daisy pattern infinitely repeated
you are a viewer watching in from the outside,

We are a band of watchers, aloft as always
infinitely repeating our chattering reminder
welcoming her and her and her back from that cold, cold hole.
We find her tears of mourning at the burial site and cherish them
and wait till we can send them back to the rainforest where they were born.

a tear lost in the rain
something always withers
and you are weeping,
holding yourself at her burial
those words of endearment
ashes to ashes…dust to dust…
and there is that unmistakable sound of her coffin closing
your grief comes out in half sobs
you retch
and the tears that you once shed for yourself were now for her

We were there when the oceans were steam.
We were there when the cypress was grass.
Our claws were the feet of cyclops, our wings the limbs of pterodactyl.
All the tears she sheds are our amoebic confreres,
and her journey home is our joyous occasion
for unrestrained flight.

there is a path

on the dark journey back home