There were spiders and honeybees in my yellow hair tangle

I cut off my own head, desperate search for disappeared voice

It had been too long in the dark carnival, couldn’t find

My way off the barbed-wire, roller coaster ~ when I

Jumped it was no wonderland fall, just butterfly wings

To help break the fall ~ I was bare-boned tired of the

Heavy fisted fights, Iscariot hearts and Pinocchio lies

The bare foot squabbles over the jagged shards of my

Broken word song, joy was drowned in the shadow cage

The screeching jezebel vultures didn’t have long to wait

The summer bared down, desert waves and dying things

I picked up the sword and cut open the sky - a million

Tears began to fall, small courage, found truth and

Everything false just fell away

And in a time when nature is usually preparing for sleep,

She remembered who she was and began to wake,

Red sumac release against new grass, inspired by rain,

Wick rising, green and true, gentle hum, beds of brown,

Stirred and re-birthed, strawberry blossoms in October ~

Starling mummerations stitching hope into the sky ~

Eagles come uncovering the river road, long lost but

Now, on my way home, snakeskin tune with a new face

sparrows with their sunflower seed dance, I dance too

with new abandon, finding my voice among the fallen leaves

thankful for the butterfly medicine and the caterpillar lesson

“off with her head” and it was the best gift I was ever given ~