tattooed with
purples and reds
yellows and whites
wild shafts of sunlight
cascade
over our shoulders
down our arms
pooling
on the black and white
fur of our girls
a stillness
splintered only
by the whoosh
of the wind
and
the beat
of our hearts
night’s mantle
settles on the forest floor
waning gibbous moon
keeps watch
till a thundering
of rhododendrons
awakens sunrise.
windflower townley
windflower lives on the beautiful California Mendocino Coast with her wife, border collie and mini aussie, on unceded ancestral land of the Pomo people. She co-founded the Feminist Arts Program at the University of Massachusetts Women’s Center where she published and edited, Chomo Uri, a women’s multi-arts magazine and produced the first National Women’s Poetry Festival in 1976. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including international publications. A book of her poems will be published in February 2024. windflower is also a photographer celebrating the poetry in nature