Happy Earth Day

Gaia
© Nancy A Henry (2011)

Orientation

Your first adjustment will be hardest;
the wild spinning.

Brightness is easier, though shocking—
and breathing air—

but this movement,
even in the container
that keeps you from exploding
back into light,

even with this pump
that exerts a constant argument
against gravity—

even then you’ll feel it,
the vertiginous swirl of all of it,
the surging,
rhythmic advance of sea;
the shrugs that heave mountains
out of shale plain.

Every one of us is overwhelmed by this at first.
Cry about it all you need to.

You will make your surefooted way in time,
a sailor on a rolling ship.
You will forget.

Can you trust me, stranger?
Listen:
one day you will attune to this mad dance.
One day, nothing will seem to move at all
but the rivers,
and the wind,
and your own wild heart
as you run.

© Nancy A. Henry (2001)