peace

I am the black lace tree

/ kristine / Leave a comment

velvet-2

I am the black lace tree
Fashioned to the shifting swathe of sky
Lifting your eyes to beauty

I am the steadfast girth
Of the wide gnarled trunk
Urging your body to lean

I am the swooping blackbird
Thrilled by the cool freeing air
Calling your heart to joy

I am the determined dog
Nose to the sensual ground
Dragging you to notice

I am the rose-pink clouds
Lightly glowing on the horizon
Holding your mind in presence

I am the graceful branch of pine
Displaying my fringe of soft green growth
Guiding you to breathe

As you breathe for me

Your anguished thoughts
Are mine too
And as you watch them
I will take them
And place them
For safe keeping
In the deep velvet purse
Of my wise old hills.

– Wendy Simpson

 

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the peace of wild things

/ kristine / Leave a comment

flying
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