Poetry

Poem: Empty/Water into Wine, Sunday Retold

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Mike Lacey – Glass

Hello, welcome back. This week, I am combining two things I sometimes do: Sunday Retold, and a poem drawn from the reading. For those who follow set Bible readings through the weeks, we’re still in the season of Epiphany, when we look at moments of understanding and revelation. And this Sunday, we’re meditating on the first sign recorded in John’s gospel, which took place at a wedding. As I was reading it, the image of those stone water jars filled my mind, and I’ve attempted to turn my meditation into a poem, below. I thought I would share it with you even though it’s so new, in case it helps you or prompts you in your own reflection. 

So, first the reading, then the poem:
John 2:1-11

On the third day after Jesus called his disciples, Jesus went with them to a wedding in Cana, near Lake Galilee. The whole community was there, eating and drinking, dancing and laughing, blessing the young man and woman who were starting their life together. But Jesus’ mother, Mary, noticed that the wine had run out and said to her son, “They have no more wine!”
“Dear mother, why are you telling me this? Now is not my time.”
But later, Jesus spoke to the servants. “Fill those jars with water!” he said. For there were six large stone water jars nearby – the sort that were used to store the pure, fresh water the Jewish people used to cleanse and purify themselves before worship. The servants filled the jars with water and, puzzled, dipped their serving jugs into the newly filled jars. They poured some out for the host, as Jesus had told them.
Then the host called the bridegroom over, a broad smile on his face. “By now people are usually serving the rough wine – but this wine is really good – wonderful! You’ve kept the best till last.” He gulped another warm mouthful of the wine that had been water as the servants served the wedding guests.
Jesus had taken the water from the stone jars and turned it into fine wine. When his disciples saw what had happened, and saw the servants pouring out new wine for all the guests at the wedding, they gasped in wonder. They had caught a glimpse of Jesus’ glory, and the glory of God’s kingdom. The disciples put their faith in the one who turned water into wine.

The Bible Story Retold

The Marriage at Cana, Gerard David

It’s a beloved story, often shared at weddings, its many layers rich with meaning. I tend to find that something strikes me in particular, draws me in, and this time it was those empty stone jars. So, here is a poem that grew out of turning the image of those empy jars over in my mind. There is much else that could be said, but today, it’s simply this…..

Empty/Water into Wine

Those empty stone jars,
I see them – pale grey,
with a film of dust, leaning
against the wall, overlooked,
unregarded as the wedding
rolls on, music and dancing
and laughter sending tiny
tremors through their hollowness.

Six of them, as empty as
days can be, an emptiness
we know by taste, our dry mouths
rimed with fine powdered stone.

And this is where you began
your work, with these empty jars. 
Had them filled
with cool water –
so far, so expected.
For purification, cleansing,
the couple’s, the town’s,
love and life,
as the wise look on, nodding,
sure that they have your meaning.

Oh, how you delight in upending
expectations, traditions.
What was drawn from these jars
was not water for making pure,
but the red bubbling joy
of good wine, poured and shared,
for the delight of all gathered,
for the blessing of love, and union,
uproariously, and without fanfare.

After three days, this is the glory
revealed, this is what it means
to be full of grace and truth,

To have our days, our beings,
filled with water, only for it
to poured out as fine vintage,
only for it to be transfigured,
transformed, as wondrous
as the grapes on the vine,
as wondrous as a day,
a life, so open to joy.

If you would like to use the poem or reading, please feel free to do so. I’d appreciate it if you mention this blog and my name is doing so.

Poem: A solitary shining drop

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Sedum, after the rain had cleared.

The practice of wandering – often around the garden – contines to be a a helpful one for me, quieting and contemplative. The practice of standing still and looking, too. Quite a lot of apparent “nothing” seems to be fertile ground, after all. Something catches my attention, as if it is saying: ‘look, here is something, a marvel, a meaning, a glimpse of beauty’. I am coming to think they are happening all the time, and what makes the difference is my openness to seeing, hearing and knowing them.

And so, when the sun broke through after the rain, I went outside, and sat on my coat, and looked. Some distance across the lawn, I saw a bright red light, flashing, and, curious, saw a drop of rain acting as a prism. I watched it for as long as the angle of light made it shine with colour. It called to mind two ancient stories – the burning bush, and the flood – from the Hebrew Scriptures. How the world is full of epiphanies. And again, I was in awe of the way the natural world – of earth and fire, water and air – invites us to listen, to pay attention, to wonder.

A solitary shining drop

Just now, I saw the sun
catching a raindrop as it
rolled so slowly down a
sedum stem, fleshy
and green.

It shone through red, rich,
neon and ruby, flashing as the
stem swayed in the breeze, taking
the drop through that one
ray of light, back and forth.

Then it suddenly changed
to the dazzling blue of cobalt
and lapis lazuli – oh, heavenly blue.
Heavenly blue.

Just now, for a moment, this
treasure made of light and rain,
this solitary shining drop
becomes a tiny shard of promise,
a slim fragment of the arc
that holds the sun and the rain.

It all speaks.  All speaks. In the
mind’s quiet, and in a flash of
brilliance that turns your head.
A gentle whisper and a
burning bush, both. 
A drop and a rainbow.
The world shines with
meaning, murmuring,
as the green earth is
drenched by sun and rain.

Poem: After the storm – October ’23

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Last Friday, during storm Babet, Suffolk experienced some of the most severe flooding in England. It was good to be able to stay home and keep in touch with friends, making sure they were safe. Many people have lost their homes, their businesses and their posessions. Tales of help and rescue are still emerging. Places that have not flooded in living memory have been badly effected. We are used to threats from the sea in this part of the world, but think of ourselves as living in a dry place, unused to severe storms. The climate is changing, and it is unsettling.

As I’m writing this, the next storm is about to arrive, with a weather warning for wind beginning this evening. The mild, even warm, air holds so much moisture, the trees are still in leaf, the roots in soft soil. This morning I hurried to pot up a whole load of tree seedlings for a friend of a friend who is planting a small wood nearby, and I marvelled at how easily they slid out of the earth.

This strangely perturbed and perturbing season of weather is full of beauty, plants and flowers still growing vigorously on the first day of November. The air is full of insects and birdsong. Frogs are hopping whenever I disturb the plants in the garden. As I sat in a patch of warmth I remembered some words of Robin Wall Kimmerer which I love, from a book I treasure:

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

And as I began to write, that idea seemed particularly rich and right for the moment, and for always. What gifts we receive. I hope we can return such prodigal generosity, and care for the Earth. We do need the Earth to continue to care for us.

After the storm, October ‘23

There is a low sun
slanting gold across
all this humming green,
all this hidden life
whispering through
each bending blade,
and the birds sing loud
after the silence of the storm,
as loud and full as spring.

And the sun warms my skin
after the floods and the
rain and the rising dark waters,
and my skin is soothed and comforted
even as my mind is troubled.

What will become of us, what will
become of us all, as the air
heavies again with water, burdened,
and that water, fallen, heavies,
burdened, with brown earth,
for each year brings more strangeness.

And yet, even so, the light
drips with gold, shining
through translucent wings,
insects swaying in those
wailful choirs, in many
tiny flocks, rising and
falling in the gusting warmth,
more and more each year.

It feels so small, this heart-response
to so much perplexity. And small it is.

And yet it is something
to marvel at the beauty that
is still offered, daily,
to say yes, and thank you,
for the green overflowing of all
this life, and to tend within my reach.
To receive, to love, to speak,
to tell you even of these
rain-drenched dripping flowers –
look, heavy and ripe and bowing –
and dare to hope that in some
deep and barely discernible way
this care, this love, this joining of eyes
upon beauty, is the softest whisper,
almost beyond hearing, of
mending and healing and
knitting together,
stitched through with
golden, endless light.

This poem also owes a debt to John Keats, and his incomparable Ode to Autumn.

Poem: The grace of seeds

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As we come to the end of the Season of Creation, I offer a harvest of seeds.

I love the way seeds spread in the garden, finding new nooks and crannies to settle, new places where plants will grow and in their turn offer flowers to the insects, seeds to the wind and the birds.

As I was watching fluffy seedheads catch the breeze a few weeks ago, I felt my attention catch on the seeds. I felt that insistent “look!” which comes sometimes, and alerts me to some depth, some beauty, some meaning. It’s always worth attending to. And this time I saw the reckless generosity, the persistence of seeds, unfolding to me a truth about creation’s blythe insistence on hope. Each offering of seeds represents so many second chances, fresh starts, try agains. And the word forgiveness came to mind – as if the seeds were offering a chance of Spring despite, in the face of, the ways we continue to undermine and deplete the natural world. The seeds a sign of forgiveness, a chance to try again, an ever repeating offer of new life.

Some of you who have been good enough to follow this blog for a while may remember that I return often to the themes of the parables – the stories Jesus told – especially the ones that speak of the natural world. I love the way Jesus quotes the psalms to explain this mysterious teaching method – “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 13:35) The Hebrew Scriptures tell of a vibrant world saturated with the glory of God, of living things being animated, and full of wisdom, if we will but pay attention. I hope to write more about that another time, but for now, I’ll return to seeds. If you’d like to read more about the parables and the seeds on this blog, you can look here and here to begin with.

The poem I’m sharing with you today is full of touches from the Gospels, and another day, if I can, I might unpack them for any of you who are interested. I felt the call to “look” was an invitation into all sorts of deep truths……But I hope the piece stands on its own, open to all who look with wonder.

But for now, below, the poem. It’s been one of those pieces that has revealed its meaning to me in the process of writing, that has felt like a discovery or an uncovering. I wanted to share it with you today, this last day of the Season of Creation. I hope I haven’t hurried it along too much – it’s been taking its time. I hope it is ready. We’ll see!

The grace of seeds.

Seeds are blowing in the breeze,
gentle, white and light.
Fairies, I used to call them as a child,
back when the world was full of seeds,
and butterflies, and glimmers of enchantment.

I breathe slowly and long
into all this ripening.
All this, all, glows with a deeper life –
light and colour under the skin,
shining with a song
of greening and ripening.

Each seedhead releasing a kind of
forgiveness that falls with the seed,
falls to the earth bearing
new beginnings, seventy times seven.
Life wills to live, despite all we have done.
Life uncoils again, and again.
I am humble before it.
Before the caterpillars on the toadflax,
the frog stirring beneath the strawberries.

The world is indeed full of grace.
We do not deserve these chances, again,
and again, and again. And yet,
deserving is not the point. Seeds fall,
it is the very nature of things,
and blow on the breeze. Each one
offering multitudes. It is the way of seeds.

Might this grace, one day, even today,
catch us in its loving web as the trumpets of
bindweed blaze out a song of liberation,
and the blackbirds tumble fearlessly,
hungrily, in the hedge’s ripeness?

For the seeds float still, and
the air is still full of enchantment.
Life whispers, it calls us, it sings to us.
Does it know we will turn towards it,
at last, wooed and wonderstruck,
and learn we belong, have belonged
all along?
We might, we may, we can.
Those dry seeds show us how.

All the pictures are from the garden – and the narrow strip outside the wall by the road, where I’ve been sprinkling seeds for years.

Poem: Gaia at Ely Cathedral

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I’m sharing this post again, September 2023, as part of the Season of Creation some Christian traditions are marking at this time. So many of us have experienced extreme weather conditions this summer. I write in exceptional September heat, surrounded by welcome green from earlier rain.

I hope you find this post a helpful starting point for contemplation.

Additional note, 24th September. I am delighted that this post has appeared at The Cottage, Diana Butler Bass’ rich and thought-provoking Substack, this morning. I’ve admired her work for many years, and it’s such an honour, and very exciting for me, to find myself in her company today, under Inspiration. It’s a profound exploration of envy and gratitude, and a reflection on the deep drivers of our climate and ecological crisis. It’s well worth reading and allowing it to do its inner work on us. You can do so here.

Original post, published 12th July 2021, emerging from lockdowns:

As we are beginning to venture out a little more, we thought we would pay a visit to Ely, and the vast indoor space of its ancient cathedral. They often have contemporary art there, which helps the old stones continue to sing, giving a new perspective on ancient truths. We knew that Gaia, an installation by Luke Jerram, was going to be there in July, and so we went and saw this beautiful, astonishing sight. The comparative emptiness of the cathedral space made it all the more powerful as it floated above us.

And as the space is vast, and it takes time to walk up to, around and beyond the piece, you do have time and space in which to allow the work to speak to you, to stir up responses, and to pray. I am sure that one of the intentions is to give us all an opportunity to experience something like “earthrise”, when the astronauts first saw the whole of the Earth from space, and how that shifted their perspective, and began to change the way all of us are able to see our home. The staggering, indescribable beauty of the whole called out my sense of awe, which sat uncomfortably alongside my awareness of the damage we are doing to our precious, unique home.

In the setting of the cathedral, as Gaia hangs in the nave under the painted ceiling which tells the long stretch of the Bible’s story, I found the language of repentance surprisingly, and helpfully, came to mind. Repentance both in our more familiar understanding of sorrow for wrongdoing, and desire to amend, and in the possibly more ancient meanings carried in the old texts, of returning home, and of undergoing a profound change of mind – a paradigm shift in the way you see.

Much of my writing celebrates the beauty of the natural world, how lovely, precious, and vulnerable it is. But sometimes, that love spills over into grief. So the old stones, and the old story, seemed illuminated by our current crisis, and, in turn, those ancient words seemed to express something necessary, and powerful, and, in the end, with the potential for hope.

You can listen to the poem here.

Gaia at Ely Cathedral

She seems to float, lit up with her own light,
slowly turning, blue and blooming with clouds
as we walk up, look up, small before her.

While above our steps,
the familiar painted roof
rolls on, telling its painted story,
from the tree, and the garden,
on towards this

fathomless shining beauty,
the ‘all’ that was so very good
in that beginning.
Now as she turns
we see how she hangs
below the story’s last scenes –
the gift of a beloved child
held on his mother’s lap,
held forward towards us,
loved and given and giving,
and the wounded golden king,
who gives still.

And below, below hangs the whole shining Earth,
dazzling, vast with sea,
turning and flowering with clouds
from the southern ice-shine,
melting although we do not see her weep,

And the land, those small green swathes
and swags, are dressed in white too,
a veil of vapour,
while the deserts spread brown
and red above our eyes.

The lands are small, countries
seem tales we tell.
What is certain is this one great
flow – ocean and ice and cloud –
and the unseen winds that bear them
through our blue, breathing air.

And the people stand beneath her,
lit by ice, and hold up their hands
as if to carry her, or hold her,
or save her from falling.

How beautiful it is.
How strange and wondrous
that we should be creatures
who live within so much living perfection.

And as she turns slowly
under the child and the king,
I wonder, what do those
familiar words mean now,
‘the sins of the world’,
as the stain of our reckless harm
seeps through the blue and green,
through all this living glory,

And is there any hope in our
waking up to beauty with grief
and loss, even as dust and ashes
float across the sky,
across us all, late as we are
in our repenting?


And is there hope,
hope that we might be granted
this grace – time
for amendment of life,
to tend the garden
with its leaves and fruit,
shining and greening,
to take part in the work
of loving and healing,
of restoration,
of making all things new.

Looking at Gaia from behind the communion table brought to mind the words of repentance from that service, and I was aware of my sense of what “the sins of the world” might mean was creaking open a little wider.

Exodus poem on Diana Butler Bass

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A couple of years ago, during lockdown, I felt drawn to explore the stories of Moses and the Exodus.

One of these was inspired by Moses and the burning bush, where he takes off his shoes because the ground is holy. This poem now finds itself at Diana Butler Bass’ The Cottage, as part of her marking of the season of creation. It’s so good to be part of this beautiful musing on an important season, to be marking a shift in awareness as we begin to pause and reconsider our relationship with the rest of life on this dear blue-green planet.

I hope the link below will take you to her rich and thoughtful exploration of this theme.

https://open.substack.com/pub/dianabutlerbass/p/sunday-musings-f9a?r=46vqv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

You can find my original post and poem here.

Gaia at Ely Cathedral. You can find out more about that here.

Previous visits to The Cottage can be found ..
The Sower and the Soil
Mary, at your feet
Jesus washes Judas’ feet

Poem: What the space holds

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Gradually, we’ve been reducing the size of the unmown places in the grass. It’s been growing so fast this year, and the flowers have had a second and a third go. The sun and the rain have kept everything flourishing. There are small frogs and grasshoppers, and many bees still. It’s worth going very slowly, giving everyone a chance to hop out of the way, and leaving places of refuge. Little by little….

I wish I’d taken a picture of this patch above in the week before it was cut, when a round shape appeared flattening the stems. We were pretty sure it was the muntjac who is a regular visit to the garden – earlier this year, there was a youngster too. You can read more about the deer in the garden here and here. She is a joy.
I do worry about her crossing the road between the woods and the garden, about the speeding cars – but the only time I have ever seen her trotting along the road, everyone stopped and waited for her to be safe. Kind drivers!

As I sat by her space I imagined her presence. I felt the hum of the cars through the ground. And I thought of all the places where the creatures who used to make a home no longer do – all the absences. I felt the loss, even as I felt the beauty and abundance of this late flowering meadow. And so this poem emerged, in fits and starts. It’s taken its time, has a basenote of loss, and I hope it carries the gentle tenderness of the deer, and the many creatures I feel kin to even in this one garden.

What the space holds

There is a space in the long grass,
a flattened disc of green stems,
while all around late flowers
nod. A curved bowl, waiting,
rimmed with golden light.

Low down, face close to grass,
I hear the hiss of breeze through
stems, the buzz of bees, crickets,
even, perhaps, butterfly wings.
But there is no trace of whoever comes
here, night after night, and circles, and
settles to sleep. Too sweet a hay-smell
for fox or badger, too big for cat.

I open my mind’s eye to the night,
quiet, and across my heart
a dark shape with long,
delicate legs steps gently,
picks her way through the black
shimmer of stems and fills
this space with a shadow –
a shadow whose heart beats and
ears twitch. I see a dream-deer,
breathing, her brown sides rising
and falling as the space fills
with living warmth, with the
softness of deer, with the gentleness
of one who comes by night.

And as I dream, as I treasure
the absent deer, I think of all
the empty spaces
and places, holding now
only memory, fading,
or worse, nothing.
I think of the absences
that there have been
and that are yet to come.


Patterns cut out of sky where flocks of birds,
tumbles of bees and butterflies are not,
but once were. The rivers where
there were fish, who are not.
Places where the beavers and the big cats
and the red squirrels are not, and their spaces
cradle nothing, empty and mourning,
Earth’s arms aching.

This soft round space that has
become a bowl of dreams
does not know if the sweet deer will
return tonight, as car sound
rumbles through the earth.

This bowl in the grass
ringing with her absence, with
the absence of all creatures who
are not here, but who once were,
as I run my finger around the rim,
and feel the tremor of loss upon me,
and through me. May she be safe.
May she and all creatures be safe.

The final lines of blessing draw on the Buddhist practice of metta, or lovingkindness, meditation, which I have found deeply helpful and incorporate into my prayer and contemplation regularly.

When I was writing about the spaces where creatures are not, I remembered a wonderful Matisse exhibition we went to of his cutouts, done in his final months and filling his rooms with birds and flowers. I imagined the pieces of paper uncuring from his scissors and falling to the ground. I wondered if what we would be left with would be these negative spaces, with the birds and flowers no more, or if we would find our hearts opened to care for those we share this beautiful green world with.

Poem: Unknown – oxeye daisy

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Growing a garden which you hope will enrich and support wildlife, as well as provinding beauty for your own eye, is always full of suprises. This is no formal experiment, where we surveyed the insect and bird populations before we began to do things differently – in no small part because the process is changing and evolving and not based on a single decision point.

Last time I shared a poem with you, I hinted at the mysteries of not knowing. There are so many creatures I have no name for, yet, and I’m content to find out slowly. You can read that last poem, about the twilight creatures, here.
This new piece carries a description of an unknown insect. I’m afraid I didn’t have my camera with me, and still don’t know what it was. Maybe one day I’ll find out! (Edit 22/7/23 see end of post)

This second “Unknown” poem also holds within it a reflection on seeds, and our tendency to see things as small acts.

Unknown – Oxeye daisy

This morning, the oxeye daisy cradled
an insect I had never seen before.
Unknown, unimagined,
strange and handsome.

Long, black, elegant, with an
abdomen scriven in yellow runes.
It stroked its long, curled antennae tenderly,
as if they were locks of hair. 
Not knowing me, it knew no fear.
It did not fly as I gazed.

That small pinch of seed from last year –
tiny, dry as sand – each day brings a
new and wondrous fruitfulness,
an unanticipated beauty,
a new joy, a new abundance.
The scattering of it was
no small act, it seems.
And I am coming to think that
there are no small acts, after all.

For those of you who are interested in the readings followed by many churches, now is a time when the parable of the Sower is often called to mind – along with other seed related parables. This reflection on the scattering of seed, and the fruits that follow, draws on the insights of those stories. You could begin to explore those insights here, and here

Edit 22/7/23: In the comments below Caroline suggests it was a longhorn beetle. Here’s a picture from the Natural History Museum – a spotted longhorn beetle. It’s the one I saw! Welcome to the garden, little friend.

The Sower and the Soil, finding myself at Wild Goose unexpectedly!

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Once again, I am astonished, delighted and honoured to find something I wrote has made its way in the world, and is keeping the most excellent company with Diana Butler Bass as she shares from the last day of the Wild Goose Festival in The Cottage.

Please do take the time to read her reflections, and those she has gathered. It is a rich feast, with much to refelect on. The theme of Sower and Soil seems more relevant than ever as our soils become depleted on many levels. I am very struck by Cathleen Falsani’s reflections on the parable of the Sower from Matthew’s Gospel, which really resonate with me.

You can follow the link to Diana’s post here.

Van Gough’s The Sower

The parable is one I’ve returned to again and again, it seems to carry richer and different meanings whenever I encounter it. Here are some links to posts on the subject, in case you’d like to follow today’s readings.

My retelling of the parable is here.

More here

And the post with the blessing that Diana Butler Bass shared is here.

Thank you for joining me here on the blog. May all our soils be fertile, may we tend and care for them.

Poem: Unknown. June twilight 10 o’clock

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A starry wood – photographer unknown.

Welcome back to the blog! Thank you for joining me here in the garden again.

One of the great joys of summer evenings is going outside to look at what’s happening in the warm, long twilights. In particular, I love to look for bats as they tumble and swoop over the long grass, and above the shrubs. Last year, we had a bat recorder in the garden, part of Transition Woodbridge’s wildlife corridors project. It’s fascinating to find out what treasures we have, and to work together to try and encourage more. There was an evening event with feedback, and you can find out a bit more about it here, following the links. I was sad to have missed it, as we were away. But I know there are bats here.

The garden at night is a very different place from in the day, quite mysterious. I’ve been thinking about the many creatures who come to or live in the garden who I don’t know and can’t name. I’m learning all the time, but the more you find out, the more you realise how much you don’t know. I’m learning too not to mind the mystery, to find out what I can but to just enjoy the beauty and variety of creatures we get to see, and hear. To notice the detail and the behaviour of creatures that may in time help me to find out what they are, but now the noticing is enough, and a real source of delight. We know the muntjak and the fox, and a hedgehog from time to time, are there at night, we hear an owl and know there are mice, and probably voles, but the unknown creatures bring something special to the experience of being in the garden too, Not rushing to id everything, but instead being open to observe with awe, is something I’m coming to love. You don’t need to know what things are called to appreciate them. You can also do your own naming!

So this theme, of unknown and unnamed things, begins to unfold in this poem. I think there might be a few more pieces exploring this way of seeing too.

I don’t have the tech for night-time photography, so the words will have to do.

Unknown
June twilight 10 o’clock

We went outside to look for bats,
up against the navy and turquoise sky,
up among the slick sycamore leaves,
up above the long grass where
pale moths flutter.

We waited in the thickening dark,
quieting, and then saw a black shape
twisting and swooping amongst
the other night-flyers –
a heavy beetle lumbering,
ghost-moths, silver gnats.

In the day, all can seem
sweetness and light. The smell
of roses and lilies hanging in the soft air.
Our own familiar world, we can think.

But now, darkness reaches
closer than our
outstretched fingertips.
The bat flies overhead,
joined by another,
and another,
and we hear sounds too
down in the long grass
down in the deep cover of
the borders.
A rustling and a moving
that grows louder as the
space is transfigured
by darkness, strange
creatures blooming in the
imagination, unknown
and unnamed.

As looking up again, I see
the gathering stars
sometimes obscured by
stretched and fluttering wings.
There is so much unknown
to me, so many names
have never been on my lips.
The quietness of unknowing
is upon me, even as

I seek to learn. And
I find I am discovering, mainly,
what it is to live in wonder,
to walk slowly, and in awe.