Upper Marshall Meadow

by Aideed Medina

 

Hold yourself still, balanced on bent legs, bent ankles.

Imagine joints, on exoskeletons,  jaws, hinges on wings.

Hold still.

Hold breath.

Life is moving beneath you.

 

It will be heard before it is seen, the stillness in the cold morning air.

 

There are no shadows to cast beneath the gray sky.

The breeze is moving quickly , spreading out the thinning layer of clouds around,

but who is looking up,

at the sky,

when the ground  alive?

 

The living floor of the meadow

is busy,

too busy to let my eyes rest on one round, scurrying body,

on one slender shiny shadow,  on one bristled armor,

ready to jump.

 

Cup your hands,  your palms open.

Let life walk across them.

Face the tiniest face,  the mighty, the many,

that outnumber us.

 

Let the air warm as morning metamorphosis into afternoon.

Let the meadow wake up!

 

We call ourselves "children of the sun",

but our brothers,

and sisters, that crawl in tall prairie grasses,

and climb up pine bark,

truly honor El Sol,

with music directed by sunlight itself.

Each note is composed for the slightest increase in the temperature of the air.

 

From silence,  crescendo.

 

All forms of buzzing and ticking away,

mark the time of day that the sun is king.

 

As gradually as the clamoring of the cicada rises, it fades away and announces the clouds,  rolling back in,

to block the sun.

 

Silence, now.

 

Wings closed.

Bees sleep in bell shaped flowers.