“Nature is the infrastructure of our communities…Nature enriches us economically and culturally and historically, but it also enriches us spiritually. God talks to human beings through many vectors: Through organized religions and the great books of those religions, through the prophets and wise people, and through art and literature and music and poetry, but nowhere with the same detail and texture and grace and joy as through Creation. And when we destroy nature, we impoverish our children. We diminish their capacity—and our own—to sense the Divine, to understand who God is, and to grasp what our own potential is as human beings.” —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Confession

Before I started writing
in earnest
I didn’t know
how much
I love nature

I should have known
by the way
cicada summersong
stirs sacred memories

I should have known
by the certain slant
of light
on fiery autumn trees
there’s hope within
which never leaves

I should have known
from the brilliant beckoning
of silversharp stars
on a clear winter’s night
or by Venus,
glittering bright
over the ocean
as the sun rises
that the soul
must keep reaching
for what it cannot
grasp

I should have known
that once I start seeking
I will find
just as I discover hawks
perched high above me
every single time
I think to look up

I should have known
by the poignant scent
of fallen pines
and freshcut grass
that newness
returns
after the pain

I should have known
how much humans
have lost
by not living close
to the earth
as we were meant to
(as we did, in ages past)
or how this void
is behind
the longing
of every soul
crying out
for belonging
healing
restoration
and peace

I should have known
all things
are interconnected
and sustained

by the voice
speaking through
nature…

Before I started writing
in earnest
I didn’t know
how much
I love nature

but the important thing
is that I know it now

I will always know it, now

for, like finchsong
at my door,
untold glories
surround me

weaving their way
into my writings
so that I recognize
holy rhythms
of life

spoken into being
into my being

—let me listen
oh, let me listen.

One of last year’s baby bluebirds hanging out by its natal home, on my back deck

*******
Composed for Day 13 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers