Like Lovers Do

My hands shake beneath this precious dawn, not for myself, but for the fate of humankind, a land I do not belong, for my eyes see the peaks of Himalayas in the tips of pine trees, where bluejays perch, contemplating their next flight, and the grass, as Whitman pondered, this precious gift, otherworldly, No, I do not belong down here, yet I am grounded, for my spirit is in flight with the hawk, scrying above, screeching solitary, as a murder of crows attempt to take it down from the most holy sky, yet fail, again and again. I see this world like a child, wondrous and wide-eyed, an explorer of my own soul, the new dawn shines upon my chin, upturned, and the breeze, she tussles my long mane, like a lover, splaying my legs, ever so gently, apart, to the virgin skies. I belong in the waves, meeting the shore, the crashing of tides beneath the moon, full. I exist in the limbs of trees and the sound of my feet bearing down upon this sweet Earth. My soul longs for completion, for respite from the dying world, for I exist in both, in a land where my voice is unknown to the language of humankind. © Photo & Words Susan Marie