Stratum

The rain ticks loud
on the corrugated 
roof above me.
I look up to see the
dark cloud and catch the
red squirrel leap from
tree to tree:  flying squirrel.
No food in our boxes:
sometimes they have to source
their own.  I see it now:
hanging upside-down on
the neighbouring nut feeder,
food for the birds!  It is
cold today.  The pheasant on
the grass flaps and screeches
keeping me company.  All the
grass is wet with beaded
water.  I looked in the
mirror this morning and saw
that I am getting old.  Old
daughter.  Old as the hills
and their weather.  I have my
own geologic time scale,

my own periods, epochs,
my own fossil records,
my own ice age.  I am
formed of strata and
silt:  the surface
rich with minerals and guilt.
I exist at the 
top of my layers
but my roots go deep down
to bedrock, to inception,
to shifting sands where
the tides were uncertain.
I am noble in my
height, like a Fir
but when I become
extinct I will go back
to complete the circle
and replenish the earth
with my cares and my sins.

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