Invisible but strong
The thread, the root
The skein, the net
Connects all trees
Spruce and pine
Crepe myrtle and mimosa
Tree of heaven and treasured maple

The thread, the root
The skein, the net
Holds us too
As we stumble and stutter
Causing maple to tremble
And pine to sigh

Delicate
White green
Sunlit tendrils
Carolina jasmine
Almost kiss
Drooping
Furry spruce

Small stone
Celtic cross
Shelters 
Under
Plum yew
-	Cephalotaxis harringtonii 
According to Woody
Who rocks gently
In his rustic chair
Next to me
On our half sunken
Back porch

Overhead fan spins
Slow
Water
Gurgles and plinks
Jug to jug
Into the tiny pool
Harboring broken pottery
Ceramic frog
Wire duck
Fat squat plaster bird
Speared ferns
Purple tradescantia
Red hearted coleus
And one small 
But growing
Japanese maple

Red breasted robin
Pauses
On the half collapsed
Bamboo fence
While her chicks wait
Open mouthed
In the nest
In our porch rafters

The small simple
Richness
Of the world
From our back porch
Is too vast, too complex
For one poem

As spring waits
For summer
As bud waits
For blossom
As tadpole waits
For frog
As gravid waits
For birth
As dawn waits
For sun
As dusk waits
For moon
As lover waits
For loved

So in holy hope
I wait

I am a queen
With a crooked crown

over what crooked realm 
do I reign

when sometimes
(too often)
not even my own will
obeys

I walk a crooked path
To my crooked throne

I think a crooked thought
Cry a crooked tear
Laugh a crooked laugh

But my love is straight
And true
Crowning you

I scatter pieces
Of myself
Throughout my day

My trail is littered
With a thought here
A worry there

The drooping branch
Of an unfulfilled promise

The lichen covered log
Of old resentments

Browning leaves
Of once was

Slippery pebbles
Of never was

Wishes dropped here
Daydreams there
Distractions everywhere

Until
In my car
At a red stoplight
I watch an ant
Crawl up the windscreen

Ah, I think
That ant never has to try
To collect again
The scattered pieces
Of itself

But I am human

I lose
And I find

I scatter
And I recollect

I see an ant
And I give thanks

I am light and shadow
I am bird and worm
I am warmth and coldness
I am peace and war
I am beauty and ugliness
I am laughter and tears
I am joy and grief
I am energy and tiredness
I am friend and foe
I am comfort and pain
I am whole and broken
I am giving and withholding 
I am embracing and rejecting
I am forgiving and grudging
I am remembering and forgetting
I am releasing and grasping
I am goodness and evil
I am believer and atheist
I am love and hate
I am unity and division
I am now and yesterday
I am eternal and ephemeral 
I am holy and ordinary
I am connected and separate
I am I and not-I
I am who I am
Wondrously human
Wondrously heavenly
Light and shadow
Completely me
Only with all of me
Can I know
Divine oneness