If you ever lose heart and the earth seems as distant as stars fading into the noise of your busy mind, know this. That a tiny island exists in the blue hands of the ocean. That a tree grows upright into the salted clouds. That two eagles love each other enough to spend their lives greeting the morning sun together. That two eaglets stand in their nest, gazing at the heavens. Looking down to the forever ground. They eat and sleep and flap their wings. And one day in July, one by one, they will jump into the air. They will know the difference between existing and what is beyond. They will hold onto nothing. The hurricane will come, courage catching their pinions on fire, as they mount the wind, climbing ladders into realms of the invisible.


--T.L. Stokes






Friday, April 1, 2011

365 Days of the Shamen

Day 3


You are the patient one
turning your white-haired
container of thought.
Which eye do you see from,
the one pointed at the sky

or downward
toward the secret under your coat,
the pocket where your heart lies?
The crackling has already started.
A wet mass of feathers
and spindly sticks
still folded,
small dagger
chipping away at the wall.

Thirty hours of hungry work
in the dark
while you wait.
The owl calls from across the field
and the wind holds out cups
of tea singing slightly.

I have never seen your king
though I hear he must be glorious
like you. His gifts scatter across
the floor of your high throne.

A sparrow calls to the air. I will look
once more at the circle of limbs,
the softness of grass, your breath,
the steel arrow of where your eyes
travel to next.
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