Return of Earth

Purple clouds mass along the horizon.
Sheet lightning crackles.
Black winds cut,
keen as an obsidian knife.

Out of the dark west she rides.
From the yellowing east she comes.
Her white flags fly to the north.
In the south her red fires are lit.

She speaks.
The rock peaks split.

She speaks.

The past is laid open.

She speaks.
A light rain falls.

She speaks.
The future rises,
vapor on her breath.

She speaks.
Death is real.

She speaks.
Death is not an end.

-- Harriet Ellenberger

about the author

Harriet Ellenberger has recently moved to rural New Brunswick, where she is getting to know her non-human neighbours (moose, lynx, deer, skunk, bat, frog, blackfly, coyote, eagle). She was co-founding editor of the print journal Sinister Wisdom from 1976 to 1981, and from 2000 to 2003 edited a small web publication called She Is Still Burning.