Category: nature

Rapture

It’s odd, this gift of solitude.  Perched beside the canal that runs behind our site, I affirm my connection to the earth, give thanks for this place and moment, and acknowledge that I am a part of all that surrounds me.   The late afternoon sun casts a glow on the foliage across the way lighting up the mirror-still water with vibrant reflections.

Two winters ago, I was fighting to breathe as temperatures dropped below zero. Trapped inside my home by impassible walkways, I was desperately trying to stave off depression.  It’s hard to be hopeful when isolation is imposed.

“There are no absolutes in life,” a professor once told me, and I think of that now – how just when we think our sentence has been handed down and sealed, an opening appears.  I have been most fortunate.  I savour each moment this current state of solitude offers.

Heron’s watchful stride
invites reflection, respect –
winter’s solitude.

(Kim is hosting in the dVerse pub tonight with solitude being the prompt for our haibun.)

Sharing Space

Morning, he perches,
resplendent in heron gray

Like a beacon, he watches,
sets a rhythm for my day.

Is he lonely, I wonder,
eyes silent and still?

Later, he’ll wade his slow,
mindful hunt, while I tarry
waterside, camera aimed.

We’ve grown accustomed
to sharing this quiet space

I, the more curious, but
surely he ponders me too.

Is he lonely, I wonder –
Are you? his presence asks.

(Inspired by the resident Great Blue Heron and the promptings of Ragtag Community – resplendent, and Fandango – formidable.)

Waiting On the Storm

The air hangs heavy and yet I shiver,
threat of rain clouds the forlorn sky;
high above the palm leaves quiver,
the air hangs heavy and yet I shiver
even birdsong has become a wither
Nature’s wrath seldom a passing sigh;
the air hangs heavy and yet I shiver,
threat of rain clouds the forlorn sky.

(An attempt at a triolet for Jilly who is hosting the dVerse pub tonight.)

Abandoning Mother

Day, no more than a sliver, casts a subtle glow on the path.   A small bird tap-tapping on windowpane has awakened me, invited me out.  I follow it now, as it flits from tree to bush along the way.  We come to a stream, whose waters swirl in a nearby eddy then rush over the rocks, merrily singing Earth’s praises.   Seventy-eight acres of untouched land surround me.  Birch, oak, and willow among the giants that offer shelter. I have come on retreat.  A chance to regroup and recharge.

This bird is not the first to rouse me in the early hours; it had been happening for days leading up to this journey.  I take it as an omen: be awake, pay attention.

I feel the presence immediately.  I am not alone at the water’s edge this crisp, cool spring morning.  Although I cannot see her, I know her at once – an essence I have not felt since I was child.  Mother Earth.  I begin to cry.

“Why did you abandon me?”  The words tumble, unexpectedly.

How long has it been since I’d felt her reassurance, the protective shield of her patient strength?  I remember how as a child, locked out of home, she walked with me, whispered to me through the subtleties of the wind, and taught me the rhythms of life.

“It was you who abandoned me.”  The knowing hits me, like a punch to the stomach.  It is so true.  I turned my back on her, adopted the ways of civilization – embracing education and busyness as a means to happiness, forgetting the promise of inner peace she offers.

‘Can you forgive me? ‘ I cry.  The sorrow of our separation now hitting me in waves of grief – a torrent of shame and blame, and guilt.  How I have lost touch with so much in the years since she and I passed the days in innocence.

“There is nothing to forgive.  I am always here, whenever you need me.”

The thing is, I tell myself, as day’s light obliterates dawn’s encounter; allergies keep me indoors, and as a mother of three, I spend my days chauffeuring. What time do I have for Nature, for daydreaming?

I will not find her again, for many years, when sickness closes the door on accepted life practices and forces me into isolation, desolation.  It doesn’t happen all at once, but gradually, over time, starting with a little bird’s tap-tapping on my windowpane, inviting me to look outside.  Inside.

(Written for Willow Poetry’s challenge:  What Do You See?  Image supplied as part of the challenge.)