A Prayer for the Dark Ages

May descendants escape 

our cradle of light 

and ride the vacant winds of space 

to feed on diamond cores of cold stars 

and neutron gems 

spinning in eternal night. 

May kindness survive the crossing.

May something ethereal 

harvest horizons 

of black holes. 

May their minds have a word for hope.

May their lives enrich the expanse of time 

and rock the void 

with joy. 

May their songs express the subtle shades 

and endless ways 

of love. 

When their souls dissolve 

into darkness 

and their endless era ends,

may a trace of their being bless the deep. 

May grace pervade the empty realm 

and in the Omega remember our lives, 

we who were tethered in time.

Spring Before Leaf-Out

Athens, Georgia

Signs belie the still-bare branches
arching the hardwood forest with an airy weave.
Can you hear the hickory clear his throat?
Inside the shaggy bark, cells repair.

And pipes revive. Buds swell the tips of twigs.
High on a rough trunk, resurrection ferns go green.
Maples blush tawny red.
Spring seeps inside the trees.

My calendar shows a winter scene
with numbers tucked in ordered rows
but birds know better.
Did you catch the morning chatter?

Out of darkness, cardinals sing
and wrens respond with small bird bluster.
Can you hear the new tenor? 
Spring is in the daybreak song.

The dirt below us lives –
can you feel the tremor?
A scattering of small flowers push white
through the brown litter blanket.

Here, the bloodroot. Here, hepatica.
There, the hairy bittercress.
Golden ragwort bud purple by a fungus-crusted log.
Spring comes first to humble lives.

It creeps in cold.
It calls you from your long torpor.
Will you kneel down by tiny flowers?
Will you tread lightly the altar of earth?

Hepatica, by Don Hunter

Bloodroot, by Don Hunter

Golden ragwort