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SUMMER
It's summer in the high desert
The season of critters
And bugs
There are mice in my garage
As well as rats
Lizards scurry across the floor
Crickets jump out of cups and
Into my meditation. They
Chomp on my plants.
In bed I'm
Afraid to fall asleep
I worry about ants and
Spiders in the night.
"So what?"
I tell myself.
"The world is illusion
I am not the body
And after all
Everything is divine.
So why do my hackles rise
At the thought of alien
Creatures tip-toeing
Over my skin?
"You don't look well in the country,"
Someone once told me
When I was in the country.
It's because of bugs!
And now I live in a haven
For everything that moves.
Though the divinity in me
Inhabits every creature
Though I feel a deep distress
Even guilt at their demise
I am no longer kind
I have become a murderer
Of myself. Over and over
I cringe, shudder, bless
And kill.
A REMINDER
It was still February when
I saw my first butterfly.
A glimpse of white
Fluttering past my window,
A sign of spring--A message--A
Reminder of caterpillars and
Chrysalides, of rebirth and
Transformation.
A reminder of things we
Cannot know, as a seed does not know,
when it is planted in the earth, that
It will become a flower and
A flower does not know
The seed it is holding
Will lead to rebirth.
So we dream the impossible
And indeed, it may be true.
MY DAUGHTER, WHO CROCHETS
She makes me potholders--
For birthdays, for Mothers Day,
For Christmases
Down the years they come
In colors of rainbows
Patterns of geometry
Squares, triangles, circles
Some embossed and overlaid
Often too beautiful
To be functional
Yet I dutifully
Grasp the sides of a pan
Sliding it out of the oven
Carefully
Trying not to scorch these works of art
And as they curl around the edges
Like small hugs
I feel the love
Of a thing created
By her ingenious hands.
BREATHPRINT ON THE WIND
I stand on feet
That know this desert land
Leave footprints in the sand.
But someday
I will touch these mountains
Cross these hills
Without a body
Wave a ghostly hand
Leaving behind no imprint
Where I stand.
Only a wisp of smoke
A breathprint on the wind . . .
on the wind ... on the wind.
Savya Lee, born in Brooklyn, New York, grew up during the Great Depression. After selling magazines cross-country, she lived an adventurous life in Greenwich Village in the forties. Later she
married, moved to Pennsylvania, and eventually to California. She has traveled to Europe and India, and has recently published a memoir, The Sky Through The Hole In The Bone. She now lives in the
high desert where she formed the performance group Ceremonial Sounds, combining percussive instruments with the spoken word.
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