Dwelling

A poem about learning to dwell within a place.

Here the leaves have turned again
The old cottonwood that was cut back is falling further
Fungus eating away inward.
How many more seasons will it be beside?

I know lineage
Of the quail family in the bushes now
I've lived here across two and a half of their generations.
The once granddaughter, now matriarch
Same scurry
Same guttural, frantic, lovely warble.

Tom
the man across the street has cut back his old elms
He's left the piles of ground bark and branch strewn about 
This spring, he let me take some.
With it
I baptized the bare soil of my backyard
Once outstretched arms above seeping back in.
The remains of the piles on his property have sprouted wild grass and flower
Over the months
as the wood turns to green
mounds becoming earths undulation and separateness fades.

On either side of the house
Morels emerged this year
A thank you for longevity us now having been residents longer than any of the three previous.

A slight, regular pause
This is what it means to dwell.

A home 
The land it sits on
The pieces and practices and parts that make it
are referred to simply 
as a Dwelling.
Dwelling, both place and orientation, 
is inviting us into duration
and whispering,
Watch; as we show you what is happening here.