Wild Grain Mother

Your ripe heads whisper,

answering every breeze.

You bend low in the gale,

bearing the body of sky,

a caressing lover.

You move as waves on water,

nourishing all.

You teach us

Your patience, resilience.

We break and tear and crush to eat,

yet every tiny seed is perfect:

egg containing embryo,

lovely, packaged as a gift:

each seed two hands joined in prayer,

buried and reborn, symbol of hope,

Buffalo graze patiently

at Your breast, elk and deer.

Like storm clouds they startle and turn,

stampeding.

They race like fire across the prairie.

So mammoths and aurochs

have moved across Your steppes.

So lions, giraffes and rhinos

have grazed on Your veldt.

So herds of wild horses,

manes and tails flying in the wind,

have shared your restless energies,

the ebb and flow of power

rippling through Your plains,

horizons free, stretching vision.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018