Sign Language

Humans once read the common language of plants and animals, deciphered scat, scrapes, prints and rubs.

We tracked the moon from silver-sliver new to mother's-milk full, women's calendar of ovulation and blood.

Food and fertility.

We heeded seasonal change, witnessed migrations and charted the sun's path south; the length and show of shadows.

This was our language.

We carried it in a satchel called instinct.

Now we read without breezes and the smell of rain, conjure senses through ink.

Words on pages, words on screens, words dis-connected from the sensuous.

Our experience one-dimensional, souls thirst for context more than man-mind-made.

The language of place -- the old growth ponderosa pine, round river stones, bellowing clouds, grizzly dens, bighorn speckled cliff sides -- we meet them and re-member.

Every thing speaks.

Hear the chorus of survival.