PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

When injustice tangles my

lifeline

between here

and what is real,

I awaken to 

the ordinary,

the everyday,

the devotion of

mountain laurels—

how could I have 

missed them?

And the robins

throwing flames around 

their twisted villages,

the hemlock

like ghostly brides:

it all appears

when the mind and the

rain-washed air

are one,

when the wind is

theater I want to

know personally— 

a gateway to the 

Otherworld or just

a better form

of now,

where the scent is

feverish activity,

where countless 

tiny lives join

countless others in the 

single goal to 

just be here.

They know what ambition is,

and it has nothing to do

with the things

I care about.

And now they are

drawing me into

their tin chants,

their sky, their love,

their beliefs,

now rage is a waste

of limited strength in a 

limited life,

resentment just

another hissing spark

on the river that 

spits out the

fallen sky

and grumbles for me,

and I wonder if it's wise

to pray while the

river is teaching,

and if God, 

who loves in a way 

I never could, wrote

this epic of birth and death

and mystery in between,

then how should I speak

when the oaks

said it best

long before I was born?

So I'll enter the

silence

and sit in a chapel

of grass

along with the crane who

thinks he is God,

and a thousand sun-gorged

quiet marvels,

and I'll step out of my

old shattered self

and stare and please God

with my wonder,

till the earth is small

again— 

a cluster of jewel tones

and souls

sharing the vastness,

a prayer

from this point of view.

Patricia Joan Jones