All the creatures, great and small

The Dance begins with a single soul
Taking wing, upwards and points to the North
Back to a place they know, and remember
















Perhaps where their tender life began?
On a hillside
Thick with brush and tree.














Definition of wild beauty, cradling a wide ribbon
That carves the stone, still.


Not to forget the tiny life that clings to every surface

Small yet complex


Slow yet determined.


The leaf litter underfoot

Teems with small wonders, seeking only safety.



We come to gasp and weep and observe.

Stopping here only for a too-short moment
To drink in that mountain, that life.

When the Dance comes back to the mountain,
Shall we again find our Perfect Day?
Will we find our mountain, one we thanked with our brimming eyes and clutched hearts?


Or will that mountain be gone?









As a victim of violence,
Changed forever?
Will all the creatures, great and small,
Lie buried under a tomb of avarice?

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*From the OVEC website:
What took hundreds of millions of years for Nature to create is being decapitated by giant corporations who have highly paid, silver-tongued spokesmen, lots of money, and political influence. The mountain tops, once removed, have to be put somewhere, and often they fill valleys. Press releases and propaganda to the contrary cannot erase the truth about mountaintop-removal-and-valley-fill: the mountain tops are gone, the valleys are gone, the natural streams are altered or gone, the native trees are gone, and the soil is gone. *
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There were 17 nature bloggers who attended the New River Bird and Nature Festival. There are literally thousands of people who read those blogs collectively. Those thousands of people, each know even more people.
Someone is trying to save the mountains and the homeowners living in these hills and valleys, homeowners who are being poisoned and filled with toxic chemicals...whose cancers rates are doubling...whose homes are being washed away in flash floods...whose water has to come from a bottle instead of the tap. This is happening in the United States, not some far away land that you can feel comfortable distancing yourself from.
Go here. Give what you can. Write letters to those who can change the future.

The only glimmer of Heaven I have ever seen, that one mountain at Muddelty, will probably not been there when the Flock returns next year. But we can rise as one, to save the others.