Maybe a Dance

Perhaps as I walk among so many gentle plants and animals that populate this meandering country road, the sun is sinking low as the slow circling scents of twilight settle above me, below me, on all sides. The lights from home glow warmly in the distance. They define the destination. In the end, I arrive.

Maybe a dance in contrast, goes nowhere. While it may begin as the perpetual play of dewdrops along a slippery branch of plum before shifting to a confusion of flying birds, it ends on a remembering of so much passing away, of wings folding up. It is as if all the books on the wall were feathers in a giant feather bed as I move my hand across the page and the images rearrange themselves.

Naturalists' Trance

Perhaps contained within birdsong are clues to events surrounding us. Here is water. Here are berries, the cold morning-stilled flies. Here is a passing airplane, the sound of frogs, a gust of wind. All are reflected in the chorus of the birds we hear, released from the perimeter of the approaching day with the crispness of sunshine.

Maybe with backs to the rising sun we raise our hands, spreading fingers wide. Much as words are anchored to the shapes of our shadows, colorful tints of inner singing rise high along the bright wing of this early hour, dissolving broad streaks of purple into yellow and pink; the blue of each thin, sweet note emerging from the grass further refining the brilliance of our love for the sky.
 

http://www.meghanhowland.com/2011