November PAD Chapbook Challenge 17

November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Day 17

Elemental Song

who can't admire earth?
its solid womb engenders life
and takes it back into the depths;
it suffers and endures all,
without prejudice absorbing blood or rain;
it welcomes all: whatever race or faith;
its skin is cracked and callused to the touch 
in deserts where the sun has no heart;
but in a green field on a summer night
it suddenly feels like a mother-land...

where can one hide from fire?
its scorching tongues speak Death;
it eats away at life, licking the plate;
the Hell is its eternal host,
while on a festival fire commutes to heaven
where it works a shower of sparks;
once tamed it shares light and warmth,
it saves, it feeds, it comforts,
and with its magnetic dance it fascinates;
its freedom runs uphill in glowing red poppies...  

has anybody ever seen the air?
yet we can never find an airless shelter;
it seeps through life, it's life itself;
and even death lets air come to its aid;
air travels through and over generations;
no time it fears, no distance feels too far;
it shapes the mountains, and smoothes edgy cliffs;
and blows apart whole cities without effort;
it carries ice, and snow, and rain, and withered leaves;
it holds the earth in its secure embrace,
and touches our face in gentle reassurance...

what are we but a splash of water?
and what are we without its saving grace?
it blesses spring with blossom, fish with home;
it bores into the flesh of land to be its soul;
up to the sky it rushes with the heat
only to fall again, to crash and bleed through streets;
its mighty waves play the eternal tag
till they are stilled by frost and put to rest;
and in the rising sun over the tops of trees
it's born from air on the waking leaves...

...you are a summer field
ablaze with crimson flowers
that are caressed by gentle breeze
and cleanse my skin in dew...