A squirrel gathers nuts in a sun-filled glade;
salmon struggles up a swirling stream;
the sun streams down over bluebells and chocolate lilies;
two eagles soar: pin-points on a blue horizon;
a Summer storm replenishes mountain streams;
and somewhere, waves crash against a rocky shore
and cottonwood leaves rustle in a midday breeze.

The cry of a gull comes from the shimmering skies
– in August they return from the sea –
and a raven soars by, diving wildly 
to disappear somewhere below a rocky ridge;
a brown fox dances in the kinnikinnick
and red paintbrushes tremble in the breeze.

These images of the planet I hold sacred
even as one of millions of unseen faces
under the ever-spreading canopy of the city
whose smoggy breath forever hides the stars – 
the city, where no one looks up anymore
except those still mesmerized by her neon gods.

Yet even here, in the great inferno, life thrives:
people talk and laugh at sidewalk cafés;
impromptu gardens drape balconies and window sills;
rock doves in iridescent plumage flap their wings
and trees still grow, surrounded in concrete and steel
and like humans, learn to breathe the poisonous fumes
of an endless flow of passing traffic...

‘Ah well, all is fine,’ I find myself thinking
as a soft breeze suddenly ruffles my hair
as I run across a tree-lined boulevard;
when the sun breaks through between highrises
to touch my skin as in my days in the mountains.

All of this reminds me of the beauty of Earth;
how privileged I am just to be;
to have experienced one colorful sunrise;
to have made love, if only once, 
between the roots of a big old tree:
to be one of the undying echoes of life.

(c)Sharran aka "Windwalker"