Skipping Stones – book released

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“Skipping Stones” is now available on Amazon!

Many thanks to Thomas and Ethel Davis at Four Windows Press, and to Lauren Scott and Candice Daquin for their cover reviews. 

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Gaia Calling

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Hello, my friends,

is anyone there?

I need someone

to come repair

my shattered biosphere.

The ocean’s clogged

with plastic sludge,

the beach is cut

with broken glass,

my raging fever

melts the ice

and all the while

my insides churn

as ancient trees

are turned to tables,

wild creatures

robbed of fur

their heads mounted

on walls.

I sob aloud

and strain to breathe

the muddy air

my tears are lava

running through your villages

I’ve lost my balance

can’t control

the atmosphere

it spins and bawls

across the plains

I quake apart

your buildings fall

the dust roars through

our sacred land

my voice grows hoarse

but still I call out

desperately –

Can you hear me now?

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© 2013, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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(Re-posted from 2013)

Image from “Bing” free art.

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Vine

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If you were an ivy vine

would you spread

across the foothills,

wind your way

through sharp pitched mountains

curling ’round

the fallen log

where it bridges the muddy slough?

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Would you wend your way

around deep lakes and

through the tangled valleys

to the stand of trees

where you’d remember me?

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And would you wrap

around my trunk and

spiral through my branches

as you followed every curve

to the top

where we both

could touch the sky?

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And at noon

when you felt

the warm lips

of the sun

upon your leaves

would you sink

your comely roots

into my bark?

I think you’d grow on me.

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(c) 2013, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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(a re-post from 2013)

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Kismet

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Sooner or later

Gaia has her way with us

all will be seduced.

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(c) 2014, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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(Photo from July, 2011.  Re-posted from 2014)

 

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I am Tree

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I give my body

for your tables

and your chairs,

for bracelets

and for drums.

You hammer me

into your floors,

untie my shiny knots

beneath your feet.

Can you hear me whisper?

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My branches stretch

to stars and wind

and fold you close at night,

and in the dawn

you grind me

into sawdust

for your pathways

and your barns –

you dance a jig on me.

Can you hear me sigh?

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My leaves

suck the poison

from your air

and shield your faces

from the heat.

Then tenderly

they cover Earth

with patchwork colors

suckling winter into spring.

Can you hear me howl?

I am Tree.

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©  2012, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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(re-post from 2012)

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Magic Carpet Soup

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It rolls in to me

one fresh churned wave

of salt-laden soup

in mussel shell blue

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with armor of chiton

in sea-weed sway

and twists of driftwood

on layers of foam

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bringing crab legs and agates

in dustings of gold

that buckle and rattle

kaleidoscope stones

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and as barnacles yawn

to taste the high tide

it rolls in the next one

for you.

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© 1993, 2018 Betty Hayes Albright

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(a re-write of “Beach” from 1993)

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Marina Beach in Edmonds, Washington (on Puget Sound).

 

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Short Ode to March

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Primroses!

how winter thins

as shadows quicken

in sunlit trees

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as dew swells

the un-sheared lawn

with promises, promises

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and dreams are joined

at the wing.

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© 1993, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright 

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