When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
[Wendell Berry]

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2013/01/20/5663/

River Runner

The river is flowing
like a haiku
from the
tragic
gaping
mouths of glaciers.
I run the whitewater
slosh softly over the haystacks
like my boat has supple hips
and this is flamenco.
I didn’t know I would need to be baptized
this many times
in such rapid succession
for my tiny sins against
grass
the heaving wings of birds
God.
So I run the river
to make up
for everything I never knew would come.
Someone said
we are born to the rhythm
but water is mayhem
the beating drums of bliss
a thousand thirsts gulping prayers
like open hands.

[river runner hoop earrings ::: all sterling]

Vox Humana

1.
Vox Humana.
This is the human voice sailing
rising up in trembling echoes to dash against sky, rock and lake in graceful curves.
This is the arc of beautifying. That broadness within that comes
with letting go and reaching out.
There is expansion here, like the push and pull of lungs, the testing of space, the fullness of time.
With the rising of the sun, and the going down of the same, the unfurling of soulscape
the whispering of a Holy Name.

2.

All around me, hands are casting stars.
The water is burning.
My voice has foundered.

3.
Praise is the silent dip of a paddle in water
navigation by starlight and aurora
the spin of a compass needle
the prickle of night sky on skin
cold hands in a sleet storm
gripping gunwales with white fingers
that deep bed of moss I called home.
I am birch, peeling on the surface, and jack pine (the only release is fire).
I am stabbed with ice.

4.
Why use words when a careful trill in sweet, melodic intervals heaves with truth.
When the ice breaks up,
will you sing me home?
I could rest
forever.