INFINITY
Noticing this, breathe easily
With infinity dancing everywhere.
Radiance Sutra #31
Hurt by thumps of hail
the Yin of dead leaves
and the Yang of succulents
focus on the rotation of worlds
within and apart. They consider,
Can there be life beyond the tin fence?
Sheila shivers.
Time reaches into infinity
with no beginning or end.
VARIOUS BIRTHS V
Birds like leaves
populated the tree
of dried seed pods.
Sheila asked, Are you checking
to see if I am ok?
Sheila was made of pelican bones with feathers
of broken glass. Rebuilt.
Ice crystal blood pulsated
at the bottom of the page.
Turned the page
and she flew.
SUNSET / ROCK ECLIPSE
A black bear bounds across the parking lot into a valley of blackcap raspberries. Sheila has never
seen a bear in the open like her fetish with a turquoise lightning bolt. The unmarked trail takes her
through a valley away from the bear. She finds her own raspberries, taste their sweetness. Sheila
meanders through Bigelow’s sneezeweed, Corville’s smoke flower, and St. John’s Wort. A stream
flows beneath white husks of fallen trees. She touches spongy sequoia bark that protects the giants
from fire and insects. Then shakes a sequoia seed into her hand from a cone. The tasty seed
crunches inside as she becomes part of the ancient tree. A short climb and she’s on volcanic Sunset
/ Rock. Pine trees span the vista that expands from the dome. Two other families are here to partake
of the eclipse. One plays Beatles songs that claim the silence and the other looks through safety
glasses. Sheila settles near a manzanita, take out two pieces of paper, one with a hole cut in it
and hold them parallel to each other. Hathor holds a solar disk between her horns. Her son, Ra, is the
eclipsed sun. Partial reveals itself. Then she holds the paper over her sketch book and tries to
capture the changing shape with a marker. The outline emerges round as the moon passes by. The
sun is the moon / Lava rock moon / It’s getting darker / The animals are quiet / Is the world ending?
Sheila photographs the nearby woods lost in slight // darkness.
Glint Literary Journal 