R A Ruadh

When I was Summer

When I was three

Summer rattled with the surf

Across a pebbled beach

When I was five

Summer sang the soaring choir of

Cicadas on a hot Virginia afternoon

When I was seven

Summer blinked firefly morse code

And brushed wings in the Blue Ridge moonlight

When I was ten

Summer sparkled loon laughter

Skipping in the sunlight of a New Hampshire lake

When I was sixteen

Summer exploded in lightning and thunder

Echoing across Lake Michigan again and again

When I was nineteen

Summer was a moped humming down country lanes

Between magical chateaux and downy peach orchards

When I was thirty-four

Summer was my toddler counting ducklings

In a small Dutch harbour

When I was thirty-six

Summer was the story of the wise salmon

Dancing with fairy lights in the waves of Galway Bay

When I was forty-one

Summer was a deep throated blackbird

Enchanting an old Danish forest

When I was fifty-two

Summer was the river below the whispering cedars

While bald eagles surveyed the Lilloet Valley from above

When I was fifty-seven

Summer was coyotes and sweetgrass and

Honour songs rising into the starry desert sky

When I was sixty-two

Summer was the planeless skies of plague and

I could hear Canada from coast to coast.

The Three Sisters are corn, beans, and squash, traditionally grown together by many indigenous peoples of Turtle Island  (North America).  For us they represent the gifting relationship between earth and all who live with her.

Sacred Sisters of Summer

The black soil beckons

Waiting patiently in an old bin

Welcoming my fingers

As I gently push the first sister

Down into the warm

Embracing depths

She bridges and connects me

One with our mother

Her gift multiplied

Down in her roots and up to sky

Once my first sisters have awakened

From their abiding sleep

Ready to hold their younger siblings

As they learn to dance sacred rounds

I will reach again with seeds

Tucked in a circle around and

Around and around they will

Climb with the sun embracing

Holding each other


Waiting for third sister

To be shed from my fingertips

Into the welcoming womb of our mother

There to root and rise

Spread shade and protection

With leafy vine

This year’s rain gatherer and

Next year’s rain holder

Summer will tease the tassels

Bees their buzzing business

Will provoke beans above and

Squash below

Every sister bearing

New generations

New gifts

For now it is enough

To give tobacco and thanks

For the blessed gift

Of laying my first sister

In the earth

To be born again

When summer is coming in

When I sit quietly enough

And still my breath

I can hear summer coming in

The fiddleheads push through the forest floor

Uncurling each leaf

With restless reaching rustle

The pond is alive with mayflies

Stealthy strokes of frog legs and

Mud bound bubbles bursting to freedom’s sunlight

Each tiny bud of lilac lazily allows

A juicy eddy of fragrance

To join the whispered wandering winds

Grasshoppers collide with stalks of grass

Crickets creak and squeak in cadence

With the first sing song of the cicadas

When I sit quietly enough

And still my breath

I can hear summer coming in