Alixa Doom: "Cedarkin"

I move slowly, happy
with just a bird song in my ear
and a breeze blowing through me.
I no longer buy tickets to anywhere.
Turning off on Deer Run Trail I climb the hill
through the sun and mist of cedars.
The slower I go the more time there is
to wear seed in my hair
and starlight on my skin. I sway
and bow to a truer time the earth
pushes up through cedar trunk.
I become filled with this place,
the broad green arms,
the quiet affection of cedar sisters.

"Cedarkin" by Alixa Doom. Text as published in A Slow Dissolve of Egrets (Red Dragonfly Press, 2014). Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: "Western Red Cedar," photograph taken on June 13, 2009, in British Columbia (Canada), by Evan Leeson.