Garden Metamorphosis

In the midst of a confusing and frightening world, Smoky Zeidel remains true to form with her poetry, gently reminding us to close out the superfluous and remember that which is sacred. Garden Metamorphosis is both a love song to Mother Earth, and a celebration of the cycle of life.

In “Dirt,” Zeidel wishes us “More dirt paths through forest, meadow, and desert,/pine needles and humus and sand sticking to your feet.” In “Hawk Dance,” she shares with us a spiritual moment: “Oh hawks, if I had wings! I hear your music’s secret score,/I start to dance, and dance into the night.” And in “The Big Picture,” her silent prayer is a benediction for all of us: “Slay me with a sunset numinous/ whose colors have no names./Let me see the big picture,/live a macro life,/before my days are over and/my bones reduced to dust.”

Read the complete poems, plus Zeidel’s short story, “Transformed.” 

“The way I see it,” said Daniel, “the fence lizard eats the fly, so the fly becomes part of the fence lizard. The fly is the fence lizard. The fence lizard gets eaten by the snake, and thus becomes the snake. What’s to say that snake won’t get snatched up by a Golden Eagle, and thus become the eagle?”

Does the same principle apply to humans? Marina is about to find out.