The Pond at Dawn

Sunday morning prompt: Wake up some part of your participation in nature – what will please you when you go out there, what will delight you, what is offered – use all senses.

At first I was aware

only of the outer me,

face in the cold, damp air,

hands stuffed in warm pockets,

feet planted in the bedraggled grass at pond’s edge.

Wavelets moved in stately fashion

in response to a breeze I barely felt.

A single white swan floated.

A single gray heron flapped.

A single black crow called.

In that moment I felt myself let go.

My heart beat—measured, stately—

matched the waves

that bore the swan,

that lured the heron,

that listened to the crow.

I was the wave, the birds, the minimum breeze.

My breath was theirs,

their heartbeats mine,

in that consciousness that holds us all at once

in the palm of its hand.