The Face of Turbulence By Jesse Wolf Hardin

This is a beautiful poem by someone I count as one of my mentors, Jesse Wolf Hardin, of the Anima Lifeways and Herbal School.


The Face of Turbulence – a poem by Jesse Wolf Hardin

And the monsoons continue,
their swelling dark promise
bursting forth as searing lightning and crashing thunder,
setting an example some afternoons
by pouring their stormy hearts out.

Pouring down the cliff sides,
and deepening the river.
Pouring down our cabin roofs,
and overflowing the gutters.
Overflowing our barrels
with a deafening din,
overflowing the carefully dug ditches that
like many projects and missions in life,
we know must be dug again
and again, and again.

Pouring down on us as we rush to tend
what needs tending and covering,
rivulets down our faces indistinguishable
from life’s clearly unavoidable tears.
Pouring rain, and then pouring
hard
and unforgiving hail.

I look straight up
into the blinding white face of turbulence,
squint and then smile…
remembering well
what it’s like to be dry and thirsty,
even as the many little frozen balls
shoulder against the trail’s edge
in piles.