A Love Letter to Earth: Your name...

Your name

Pronounced in syllabled footsteps is

Deer track staccato

Dog’s heavy deep paws and nails

Fox’s light padding down the trails

Written in rich “death by chocolate” cake batter mud

I feel you underfoot through the sole

Of my blue boots.

You are a welcoming, resilient give.

Your invitation has resounded in my mind for weeks-

The memory of your body.

My embodied “yes” leans against a lichen-cloaked Tree

And off the right boot, the grey hiking sock.

Off the left boot, the sock.

Your spring holds my winter feet.

The last of frost diffuses

up my heels, leg bones

to my heart.

Enlivening laughter

Fox peers at me from behind the cattail blind.

A gift to have our paws in the same muddy earth.

Rooted.