Poem 1:
Restoring Me to an Uncultivated State
Standing in front of Trinity College
photographing the vibrating red poppies.
In a soft Irish brogue, as if telling me a secret,
he said “It’s not that the gardeners are lazy,
they’re rewilding and letting nature restore herself.
Recover to who she was before we humans
thought domination of nature is best.”
Rewilding.
Being open to natural ecosystems that encompasses new interactions.
Replacing human interventions with natural processes.
Rewilding.
Making the land wild again and again and again.
I know what this is like.
It’s where I am in my heart and soul and life and body.
Me bringing me back to my natural self.
Making my life wild again and again and again.
Untamed.
Feral.
Fierce.
Natural.
Indigenous wherever I find myself.
Indigenous wherever I land.
Rewilding.
My spent self is restoring my broken connections
with nature, myself and others
and becoming as vibrant as the
red poppies at the entrance of Trinity College.
Rewilding.
– Pat Obuchowski (Published in Words that Heal: Verses That Work Like a Balm by Poets Choice, May 2025)
Poem 2:
This poem was inspired by a vision during breathwork in Sayulita, Mexico
On the Serengeti
I feared him before I smelled him. I smelled him before I heard him. I heard him before I saw him.
I heard the rustle on the land.
I turned to look and there he was.
Hungry for fresh meat.
I saw his muscles tense and knew he would make his move.
He ran and as his speed picked up
I cried out to the herd,
“Run! Run! Mothers! Fathers! Protect your children! Run! The lion is hungry.”
As the protector of this herd, I knew we could outrun him.
Most of us.
We ran as the spirits guided us. We ran for our survival.
Then I heard it.
The screech of a young one.
The screech of the one who could not outrun.
I knew the lion’s want for fresh meat had been savagely satisfied.
We slowed.
We stopped.
We bedded down near still water.
We slumbered.
I walked our perimeter and bowed to the mother and the father for the loss of their calf.
They cried in the night.
I rested and thought someday that will be me.
Someday I will no longer be the strongest, the fastest, the most alert and agile.
Someday I will be running from the hungry lion
as fast and hard as I can, but not fast nor hard enough.
I will be the one the young lion will take down.
I will satisfy its lust for fresh meat.
I will be the one sacrificed for the sake of the herd.
I will be the one they will cry for in the night.
– Pat Obuchowski (Published by CWC Redwood Writer’s anthology: Phases; 2023)
Poem 3:
I Want to Live in a Sarong
I want to live in a Sarong.
I want to say good-bye
to buttoned shirts
that take too long to close.
Good-bye
to zippered pants
that cause me to take a deep breath and pull my stomach in.
Good-bye
to those shoes
that never quite fit
and take me down a forced path.
Good-bye
to that two-cup apparatus
that stretches around my chest and imprisons my two full breasts.
I want to live in a Sarong.
I want to feel my hair play on my back,
gallop on my shoulders,
and caress my soft throat as if seductively whispering, ”You are free…howl…sing…laugh out loud…whisper. You are free.”
I want to fully sense the breeze
flow through the thin green gauze I wear and feel the bottom soak in the waves.
I want to open my legs so wide I feel the caress of the ocean as I let its scent in
as far as it desires.
I want to feel my breasts
rest ever so lightly on my over belly where I am fully conscious
of the way they move
as I sway and swing my hips.
I want you in my arms to feel my
full,
warm,
liquid belly where I have birthed
earth,
mountains,
oceans,
sky.
– Pat Obuchowski (Published SFWF 2023 What We’ve Believed)
Pat Obuchowski is a best-selling and award-winning non-fiction author. She has published four books including Gutsy Women Win: How to Get Gutsy and Get Going and Gutsy Leaders. Currently she is focusing her creativity on poetry and has had several of her poems published including in the 2023 and 2024 Redwood Writers Poetry Anthology; The Journal of Undiscovered Poets; 2025 Fault Zone’s Faultless?. She was a finalist in the 2023 San Francisco Writer’s Conference contest for her poetry. Pat has been in her coaching business for over 20 years focusing on Executive and Leadership Coaching. She is on the faculty of EZRA Coach Academy and mentors coaches toward their professional credentials. She is an MEA certified coach in Navigating Transitions and in November 2025, became a member of the Now, Grace cohort.