In the style of Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees
especially the acacia and mesquite,
the cottonwood and willow,
in the bosque beside the desert wash,
silently welcomed home –
a family member after a long absence,
shedding the fictions of my other self,
the painfully sustained deceit…
It has been so long, though only yesterday:
Home again with these old friends,
sharing their breathing space,
standing in the intensity of the moment
beside the softly bending winter grass
under the welcoming arms
of gnarled old branches that reach out
in a gesture of embrace.
Words take flight like the startled hawk
flycatcher, finch, or sparrow,
alarmed at my footfall,
who flutter away leaving a silence
where the giant granite boulder lies,
unmoved for a hundred years or more
since tumbling down the mountainside
to settle in among the agave and saguaro
for me to lean on, rooted as we are
in this place.