who am i?

sometimes i go barefoot just
to feel the earth murmuring,
infusing me with nature song,
lilting sweet, fierce…one day
i shall return to those cool, dark
catacombs below to cavort
with the worms and slugs

i’ve been known to hug a tree
or three or more, now and
again to remember how
to bend when tempests reel
and whirlwinds leave me
vulnerable to the cold, in
nakedness, learning to let go

i have floated in still pools and
on the edge of wave-rushed
shores learning to trust in
buoyancy and the rhythm
of all life’s ebbs and flows…
listening to chattering shell
shards dancing just below

i have counted on a thousand
stars, each night another wish
proposed, felt the moon’s
dizzying nudges, helpless as
the ocean tides, cursed the sun
on sweltering summer days
embraced the dusk and dawn

who am i, but flesh and blood,
carbon, hydrogen and air…to
think that i am separate from
everything i see and hear, the
universe is deep and wide, and i,
a blip in time, a dot in space who’ll
one day disappear without a trace.

~kat

NaPoWriMo 2019 #11 Prompt: write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now?