The Elemental Self

Air

I am wind when no one’s watching,

a whisper threading leaf to leaf.

I learn to vanish in the breathing,

to bend and break without belief.

My name is written in the motion

of grasses leaning toward the sun—

each blade a prayer, a small devotion

to what begins when I am done.

Water

I am the current, calm yet cleaving,

the undertow beneath the smile.

I carry sorrow softly, leaving

pearls of salt along each mile.

The moon commands; I move, obeying—

yet in her pull, I find release.

My surface shivers, always saying:

to break is sometimes how we cease.

Fire

I am the spark that hides in embers,

the fever folded into grace.

The world forgets—but I remember

the heat that hums in every place.

My laughter lights the darkened hours,

my anger burns what will not mend.

Yet from the ash, a field of flowers

blooms brighter than it dared to end.

Earth

I am the root, the stone, the stillness,

the pulse beneath the meadow’s seam.

I hold their steps, their weight, their illness,

their falling bodies, their fragile dream.

My strength is quiet, slow in growing,

but deep where none can see or steal.

The seeds they scatter without knowing

I cradle close until they heal.

Aether (Spirit)

I am the breath beyond the breathing,

the shimmer no disguise can hide.

The self beneath all selves is seething—

not wound or war, but worlds inside.

Through wind and water, flame and field,

I walk unseen, yet burning bright.

What I conceal becomes revealed—

the hidden self, the heart of light.