i She builds altars to the sun on salt and pepper beaches rimmed with bleached clam shells crushed and worn rounded quartz and jadite pebbles, driftwood dragon's bones thrown before a black basalt breakwater guarding the forest's edge. Seaward the tide drifts and leaves yellow bullwhips, translucent green sea grass to catch her steps as she stacks sandstone shards into long armed pillars. Tracing a curve like a penannular brooch, she begins east for morning light, south for treasure west for movement, north to gather the winds to her breast. Cloak stirred by the current of a sabbat fire she turns seaward, arms stretched in benediction. ii Walk beneath gray rain soaked skies Find a generous leaf from the giant maple Nestle the leaf's heart in your palm Reach deep into the dense bramble Gather clustered dew and salmon berries Lick misty rain from your lips Listen to the redwing blackbirds complain Leave enough for them to feast Step soft on green moss pathways Ease past skunkcabbage and swordfern Shelter beneath thick cedar branches Curl your tongue around tart berry juice Crush seeds between your teeth Sniff wildrose and dogwood petals Pick the curled tops of fiddleheads Spicy, sizzling in butter and cream iii the sea has wings that beat the scent of mangrove trees and sampaguita across the waves, a story drummed on gongs forged like fighting knives in a place where volcanoes tremble and fiery-eyed women cast their legs aside, fly beyond the rooftops and leave their scented veils draped on night blooming trees here the bones of the dead are picked clean by hungry aswang, releasing living souls to wander the shoreline searching for their missing things - a wooden comb a carved flute, a child playing marbles here unborn children grow strong encircled by their mother's skin, braids of garlic baskets of onions, curls of cinnamon bark here the wanderer meets himself garbed in wolf skins, teeth stained crimson hot bayonets bent into clicking claws while rice terraces step celedon green toward a sky as endless as the sea