On Puget Sound

Air Earth Fire Water

A misty drizzle falls over Puget Sound—

enters every living thing

thimble berries I pick from the roadside—

berries red, soft, tender

stain my fingers red

flood my tongue with tang.

Water seeps into leaves, grass, me.

I’m as damp as the black crenelated slug

crossing the forest path with deliberate gravity.

Under a lush green cedar bough I lean

against its stout rough trunk—

I feel the qi in flowing through every living thing

And in water, minerals, earth and from

the sun cupped yellow marsh marigolds.

A sweetness breathes from pink rose hedges,

chicory stands sentinel for my blue longing

 Ferns breathe green ideas 
 into the fallen leaves

Mist falls on an unseen singer haunting

the forest canopy with  unearthly scales of notes.

Imbued, baptized the networks of roots under

my boots know I am here—the news

travels all the way to the salty Sound.

Octopus, seals, sea otters hear the news.

They know my love of them and the gray whale

I greeted in the Baja last winter breaches

its great body as it looks shore ward.

We are all joined in this joy.

                                      --Barbara Spring