Tag Archives: nature

Hello

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Hello

I felt compelled to sit today,

And as I watched the grass wave in the wind,

Somehow I knew it was waving hello to me from you.

So I winked back and in that instant,

I knew that thousands of miles away

You must have suddenly smiled

And wondered, why?

In that moment we were together,

Connected by something far greater than love,

And far beyond anything we could ever understand.

So that in that cloud of loneliness

My heart shone with joy,

Because once more the world had spoken to me,

Once more something told me to listen,

Because once more you were here at my side.

And I felt the wind change

And it blew your kiss to my cheek,

Through so many miles,

Through so many months,

And suddenly I smiled.

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Missed

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I just finished the first full draft of a new poem today. I realized recently how much the world wants to tell us and how unwilling we are to listen. Sometimes it’s important to just stop and realize what’s happening all around us, and that’s what I’ve written this poem about.

Missed

What sweet sounds must we miss

When we find ourselves so trapped

In ourselves—and content to be—

That we silence the singing world surrounding us

With louder, harsher tones,

Tones of self-interest and worry,

When from crimson vines and falling leaves

Serenity is yearning to serenade us?

How many scenes must dash from sight,

Hiding from eyes filtered against an earth

So full of wisdom and beauty?

I shudder to think of all that our untrained senses lose.

Ah, if we could only just be,

What wonderful lessons could we learn.

To sit, and listen,

What the world might then tell us.

We might, when seeing leaves blush

Where once the forest was but a single green ocean,

Come to understand the beauty of individuality.

The rocks under our feet could whisper to us

The secret to aging gracefully.

***

I once stopped at a cemetery,

Feeling an unknown call from within.

I felt the first nip of fall

Descending through clouds above

And heard wind roaring through leaves overhead,

Whilst nearby the ocean rested, solemn.

A leaf came to rest on my leg as I sat,

And others fell, too,

To join the dead.

There was a crow above my head then,

And when I looked at it it came closer,

Lighting just feet from me.

It stopped its cawing then and gazed silently at me,

Wondering, it seemed, and figuring.

And then from it came sounds I had never heard

From a crow;

It sang to me,

Still staring,

Songs as pretty as a mockingbird’s.

And I felt myself drawn further into the cemetery,

And I listened,

Allowing myself to be guided, for once.

I found a large stone marking the bed of four stray lives.

A widow’s name I could make out,

And a son, 19 years old.

A daughter, 7 years old.

And another son, only 4 years old.

Though the year was the same,

Each died a different month,

A different day.

In just six months this family had been erased.

I wondered if it had been an illness,

Or if they had died of heartbreak.

Maybe just a coincidence gathered them all together

In so short a time.

But I couldn’t help but find,

For all the suffering that must have been brought in this time,

Something beautiful in this:

A family bond made stronger through death,

A time of mourning cut short by reunion.

And there, on the ground by the stone,

Was the skull of a crow.

I thought back then to the bird from before,

A crow who could make such lovely sounds,

And I realized then that there could be beauty even in death,

If only we allow there to be.

We think of death and we think of crows cawing,

Night falling,

And of loss;

Never of what those we miss might gain.

But that day the crow stopped cawing and sang a melody,

And as I wrote I heard church bells

And the clouds broke

And there was sunlight tangled in the branches above.

The leaves and the moss on the graves

Became an elegant dress

And the ground swelled with peace,

Where an hour ago I had mistaken it for mourning.

***

I stopped that day,

Just for a few moments,

And this, something so beautiful but simple,

The world told me.

Imagine what else we might come to understand,

If only we could remember how to use our senses;

If only we realized the wisdom God has given this world;

If only, every once in a while,

We were content to simply be.

But we keep going.

Surely, we must.

And we miss the most lovely bits of creation God ever intended.

I think on this at times,

And I despair,

And when I do,

I’m too distracted to hear the song of the sycamore,

To catch the smile in a ripple on a stream.

The park in Quebec where most of this poem was originally written:

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