The EcoAudient Crone

it’s the leaves, you know
it’s all their doing

masters modeling
this seasonal slip
into surrender

tree lungs
teaching me
the truth of
living

the way they
rest so trustingly
in the crooked
grey-brown
dips and hollows
between tree knees

the way they 
rustle and sigh
soft relief sweeps
as they gift first
tree then air then earth
with their willingness
with their fading wild beauty
with their wisdom
in resting
in becoming
ground

oh….but it’s the 
promise of their
tender green rise
of their commitment
to return, to persist, 
to breathe for the world
again

this teaching 
tangles it’s fierce
in weary ligments
stretches itself along
overworn muscle fibers
wraps itself around
brittling bones and beating heart
tugging this crone woman
to her feet and into 
the grace of 
another
day

Poems for Peace #4
© 2018 Tracie Nichols