by Rosalie Frost
Consider what we owe
earth’s flora and fauna living
and dying for nearly
five hundred million years
of geologic time.
As Earth heaved, squeezed,
bumped and grinded,
the detritus of once-living things
decomposed into countless layers,
morphing into the black gold of
power, progress, and pleasure
—- but the plagues,
they are icumen.
Possessing Earth’s gifts, we stay
stubborn as the pharoah who would not heed warnings and signs till
ten plagues exhausted his people and land.
My creative life over the last two decades —- after retiring from the last of my several professional lives —- embraces writing, photography and gardening, sometimes mixed up together, feeding each other. While I try to be disciplined in my daily practice, I cherish being curiouser and curiouser as well as free to follow non-linear and free-wheeling ideas.