Happy 13th…  Thirteen: the number of the Sacred Feminine. The number of Moons in a year’s worth of cycles. The day I mailed my manuscript to Perugia Press. The very same day my Pine drum arrived from the Drum People. It’s aesthetically gorgeous, and its song is a strong heartbeat. Here’s to dreaming & drumming in Beauty. And here is a poem inspired by the emails I’ve exchanged with Cheryl & Keith.

Love,

ej

*****

Picking Up: Poem for the Drum People

Bottles of yellow surprise
strategically left for Cheryl
by someone who knows
her habit of clearing the wake
of garbage left by humans
motoring through lifetimes
asleep, as if they are not part
of the land
they drive over,
is one discordant chord
in a world of off-key songs.

But listen:
she was able to tell me the story
and I was able to hold it in my heart.
Sharing our griefs, we learn to weave
each thread back into the tapestry
of Creation, and to sing softly as we work.
Our song of joy & sorrow is an old one, older
than the Snickers candy bar wrapper trash
that covers this fourth world,
older than Gas Stations & Seven Elevens,
older even than the Ghost Dancers.
It is an ancient song and, in human time,
a slow one.

But listen:
the beat, it is picking up.
The beat is picking up,
like Powwow drums in the distance
getting louder as we all stumble closer
to Beauty. The path is steep,
so on the way we must
cradle each other with kindness,
and carefully pick up the pieces
of our aching gorgeous human selves
like those who devote time to clearing
the litter left on Mother Earth’s skin:
as if every single piece matters,
because it does.

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