Delta Breeze

One more poem of mine to finish up National Poetry Month

Tonight you sit on the front steps
facing south
beckoning me
with your dry lips
your moist fingers.
I am already here
but I am still
and you do not recognize me.
I press against your skin,
a sweaty companion:
I am hot and heavy handed;
you crave a lighter touch.
Yet I fill your nose and mouth
slip into your lungs
course through your veins.
I drift in.
I drift out.
I am conscious
of everything
and nothing.
You imagine me with human emotions:
anger or tenderness.
I have no desire, jealousy, passion.
But I know joy.
I whisper to the poplars
as I braid their leafy hair
in the meadow.
I fill the bones of the raptor,
glide above
the sequoia and pine,
dive into a red
and brown canyon.
I mate with the river,
gurgling
through the gills
of salmon and trout.
You give me many names:
zephyr, tempest, squall.
I roll over your tongue
as you call me.
In August
I am a god in this valley.
At 9 PM
I stretch my heavy
muscles and rise
creating space
for another manifestation
of myself.
From San Francisco Bay
I rush
along the spread fingers
of the Sacramento River.
You pull back your curtains,
open your windows
in the darkness
and You welcome Me
like Bethlehem
welcoming starlight.

Photo by Jack Anstey on Unsplash