Starset

You do not have to figure it all out.

You don’t have to bow to what they say you should feel,

look like, do for a living.

You need only notice when the head and the heart

meet in the salon of your soul to agree, this I love.

Tell me of your journey, and I’ll tell you mine.

Remember-when the child asks, “why is a squirrel?”

do not laugh, instead follow the breadcrumb,

fly towards the hummingbirds aflame in ruby,

dance with rattlesnake grass hissing its chorus under the spotlight

of autumn in ochre, or ponder the gullet of a pelican

In speared free-fall for his herring lunch.

Listen to the horned owl in the burrow of his Cypress

sing to the darkness, to the last constellations

as they slip off the horizon into sea,

rumbling echoes of waves moving sand,

a love song to the rhythm of tomorrow.

Thank you Mary Oliver

Published in November 2021, The Pacific Grove Press