Coming Back To Life Moon (for Daniel Berry)
Equinox Full Moon September 26, 2026
We must learn to step on the rainbow…
We must learn how to walk on the wind…
We must learn the fog path…
We must learn to trust thin air…
—Ursula K. LeGuin (from Always Coming Home)
the summer we grew infinite alliums in black earth & snapped garlic scapes
endlessly explaining to citizens of the apple how to make early fresh pesto
the autumn that followed you carried the roadkill roe home on your shoulders
black muck boots matter-of-fact crunching on morning hoarfrosties
the day you took box camera portraits of the snapping turtle mother who’d emerged
to cross roads from her mudbog slumber to egg-laying hideaway
and the day after when you performed your first wild butchery in the tree outside your hut
your hands bloodwet & steady, the onion crate a cradle full of viscera, life into meat
then the winter deep
reshaping us one breath at a time
sometimes near & warm & visible in the sheltering canopy of northwoods
then alone & quietly desperate in a place unwarmed by self-compassion
now the whole is resonant with infinite particulars
o spring spare no blessing for our sentience
each marked by what was
the gift of return
grief into song