She calls to the world
with green leaves open,
her voice in the creeks
and rivers running fast.
She calls to the cities
of the proud
and the mind-made
with grief and forgiveness
anchored in stone.
Her voice is eternal
on the parade
of our passing
and while we are here
we yet may listen.

photograph by Sandy Brown Jensen

From the depths of root and stone
surrendered to air and sunlight,
all that color waiting in the dark
through long months of cold and rain
risen and turned once more
into the green leaves of spring.

encaustic painting by Eilish Hynes

The morning, the day,
these times we live in
have their price,
their pain and glory.
Suffer what you must.
Resist the little lies.
The catastrophes
of arrogance
come and go
yet somehow
we survive,
the gates of eden
ready to open
awaiting only
one kind word.

I reach into the dark for these few words,
humble before the memory
of what we were given.
Now as the leaves of summer
stir in the morning breeze
I recall the soft wet earth
and the rising we once knew.
Hummingbirds green and gold appear,
tracks of deer cross the commons,
in the deep folds of the creek
the sound of insects and young life.
Something will come from the buried ash,
a new birth under clearing skies.
I leave the old garden and take wing
with the bright colored birds,
the gifts and the time of their giving
recorded and left in the ground
to feed what is yet to be born.

photograph by Louis MacKenzie

Let the morning come
in unveiled glory,
let darkness speak
and tell of mystery.
Let the day be what it will
as legions of despair
find home in their beliefs
while the river of life
pours on through deserts,
through rock-lined cliffs
and featureless prairies,
through land without end
until pouring through every heart
with the force of the eternal.
The day, the darkness,
despair and the great river,
all come on the tide of morning
with the unblemished faith
of a newborn.