Posted on October 23, 2025 by Jenn Zatopek

WILDLY ALIVE
– After Esther Elizabeth

I walk the high desert in late summer with friends–
pinyon pine and juniper forest,
rose quartz strewn like jewels on red dirt,
branches swaying in the breeze,
open sky proclaiming, You belong here. 

I was once broken like a horse by grief–
pain shook my foundations, the rending
of a friendship pivotal to my awakening
blowing up my interior, a kaleidoscope
of tender, wild love.

Did hours of therapy, ketamine journeys,
church services, fervent prayer bring
healing to old wounds, the embers of love
which still singe? All these offered relief,
invisible strings of love lifting me up on days
when I’d fall down in lonely despair. 

No, it was long hikes through alpine forest,
the slow ambulations along foothills in which
emerald saltbush, spiny cactus, and chamiso
line the cool earth like wandering mystics,
reminding me again–

This is where love lives, this heart so worthy
of beating, of breath, of stillness.
I stand strong in my belonging,
open my mouth to the sky, and sing. 

Image / Foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe, New Mexico