Light slants across the channel
burning away the clouds
and early morning fog.
I sit and watch, my food
the slow thoughts
that come with the tide,
filling each crevasse
with the softness of the sea,
lifting me, a weathered log
weightless on rising water,
ready to journey on.

We punish each other
and punish the earth,
separate from the land
that’s our story,
volumes of cruelty
with a few gems of grace
buried in coarse gravel.
I write to the sleeping
though they don’t often stir.
I write to the awake
to give them solace.
Today I write to you
remembering the rejected,
afraid to touch the scars.
There are years on this earth,
then days, then hours
and finally this moment
with rain in the sky,
wind lifting a solitary gull.
Look into the aloneness
of the sea and let
the sound of your heart
echo once more
on the rising wave.
We’ve drifted too far
yet amidst it all
we do sing.

Calm water slack,
two seals float and fish,
eagle perches
in its green fir tower
staring into the distance,
no sound but a solitary bird;
still as the mountain,
deep as the sea.

In the quiet of dusk
the bugling sound
of an elk herd
over the grassland,
the shadow of a cloud
vanishing in this valley
sliced into the foothills,
their flowing browse
echoing wildness
through the twilight
to their home in the night.

Singular and aware
like an eagle
I go within
to the place of silence,
dropping like a seal
into cold dark water.

I saw you on the sabbath
through the window of opportunity,
queen of illumination
holding the world
beneath a flowing green mantle,
the radiance of your light
brightening these many years
the room of my heart.