A Poem on a Wednesday Afternoon in February

I won't always post so often, but this week feels like a week to connect ❤️‍🩹

In the Dry Winter Woods


Today a brown snake lumbered 
through dead leaves. Slow,
with heavy grace he burrowed down
across brittle mosses, silty earth. Cool.
Cold. Comfort of stones. He passed
over trampled burdock, collected no burrs. 
He settled between stone, the pillow of moss, 
the shelter of leaves.

I watched him contract himself so small, 
the stone and the earth seemed to seal 
around him. Old snake, solitary soul, 
are you never lonely in your egg-brown pelt, 
when darkness comes and stars plunge
into the black belly of sky? When the wind forgets 
to whisper? 

I wanted to say, something, anything
about the oneness of all things. And the ecstasy 
and the boredom, the bone loneliness and the joy. 
And the rage and the incendiary beauty, the regret 
and dismay. And the oneness of all things and that 
the end is no end. And the hope and the fear, the way 
dreams rise in the air, disappear.

I didn’t know how to say it. 

Say it.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.


(Kateri Ewing)

(I used a poetry block to make sure the lines remained as written, but I see that they did not on the mobile app. If anyone knows how to fix that, let me know)

Image by Kateri Ewing