March 2026

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you

so let your memory inform you.

the day we met

you found me in the woods at dawn

“a lost hiker” I laughed & said

humans love to rescue; every species has a fatal flaw.

when you first looked in my narrow jade eyes

you stepped back—startled.

Something in you recognized magic incarnate.

But with just an impish smile & a cock of the head

you forgot your first instinct—

that the woman in front of you is quite peculiar.

In fact, she seems more like a woodland creature.

But you brought me home

& marveled at the way

that while every Sunday your family took communion,

every day it was the land I communed with.

Your once weeping garden, started finally smiling.

My moonlight rose & herb baths: beguiling.

Foxglove & easter lilies grew in my footsteps.

The doves & magpies forever announcing my entrance.

Your sick dog suddenly pronounced cured by the vet.

Your crook of a neighbor, no longer a threat.

You silently observed

my intimate relationship with my surroundings—

How only when I spoke your cat listened.

How the fresh rain on my skin eerily glistened.

How I always knew what you were thinking.

How I largely disregarded human conventions.

At your sister’s wedding in Silo Bay,

when the storm stopped suddenly

and there was a giant rainbow & they all said it was a miracle

White butterflies held up her veil

you looked at me

and asked with your eyes.

was it you?

I winked and said how could that be true

you felt it before you knew it—

In the wicked crack in the air

In the naughty flint of my hair

That while you’re made of blood and water,

I’m made of elemental & carbon entanglement.

I’m made up of the ocean, the land, the flame, the sky—

& ether.

To love me,

is to love the land you walk on with ecstatic fever.