No longer can I lie in the shadow of the big pine
call this my continual metamorphosis—
In this season, it was the soft touches I loved most.
The tiny Junco; the seed she craved.
I feel the simultaneous tickle of trillium as I relinquish
my life into soil. How many partings—
how many returns? For now, I shall take my rest
as crystal and dust. My six arms ever open
falling as I must, onto the company of myself.
This is how I accept fate: glittering, rapturous, releasing
my life burning from the ice that carried it.
—
CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Salmon Weather: Writing From the Land of No Return and co-editor of Cascadia: Art, Ecology, and Poetry and Native Voices: Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations. CMarie is an award-winning columnist for the Inlander and Director of the Elk River Writers Workshop. She is Associate Director at Western Colorado University, where she teaches nature writing. CMarie is the host of Terra Firma. She resides in the Salmon River Mountains of Idaho and is on the web at cmariefuhrman.com.
