There is Initiation in the Company you keep
In the bowels of an ancient caldera
Between the Gallatins and Absarokas,
a perfect amphitheater lies between a Lake and a full moon.
There, the primordial howling of wolves wakes me from slumber.
Falling through cracks in the odd volcanic crust
I am
Running,
The wind in my face.
The lava quickening occurs,
I am
Picking apart a carcass with obsidian-sharp teeth,
Howling, licking, loving, killing
Ice carves and covers the hillsides.
I am
Sleeping
In a bed of soft grass between pines.
You who don’t matter to me,
who has appeared so recently in time, yet holds my fate in the balance;
My sonorous song rocks your soul
Beyond the swoon of memory past.
Listen, young one,
To your dreams, your visions.
We are your nature.
We are your teachers.
We are wisdom present, with ease and grace.
I am taking a walk in Sunlight Basin,
its earth of limestone and fire.
The hollow soil announces your presence
and our eyes meet.
A natural disembowelment occurs which causes no pain,
An evisceration that prompts my recreating mind to stand in a stillness.
I fall back into my sleeping bag.
The night is quiet, only the call of the screech owl interrupts the silence.
There is initiation in the company I keep.
Now I must sing your song.
