.

.

Within the Silence of life’s living I am resting

quieting all thought

quelling even devotion as singular

weaving within the weft of this great love

.

The red tailed hawk still perfect but road killed

the colors of fall

the drifting snow burying the uphill windows

to lit transoms the absolute quiet of white

the starving deer the dogs ran down

in that hardest of winters

the deer’s bones in the morgue of the freezer

until I would bury the bones in Spring

the brush fires I tended that burned hot or low for days

under late snow or Spring rain

the gourds that looked like the swollen bellies of whales

the purge of the creek in spring run off stripping bark

clean from tumbling dead trees

the surprise of the rising waters climbing my calves

the ground saturated to jelly

the path we called Cat Butt turned into a river

the sound wild and competing with returning brown geese

a lightening flash snaking the grounding wire silencing

the music playing inside with a preacher’s thunder

the swath cut through the static of long berry brambles

catching hold and refusing to let go

the oldest grapevine living with the elder pine protecting

each other with their roots suckling water from the bog

the young maples I sang with

as I learned their grove’s language

the low valley road no one wanted to travel that opened

my throat to the sound of a vowel’s reaching

the last call and thumping cry shock wave of each tree

falling as loggers clear cut nearby

the hummingbird sitting in stillness on the tip of the

branchless dead tree each summer’s day at 4

the oceans of colored mushrooms swelling

the deep woods just that one wet season

the bed of lace and leaves tatted by oak’s tannins

where I lay in surrender to soft rain

the purple woman’s hands of black cohosh rising

from wet soil dressed in the mysteries of Spring

.

Drawing by Jana White ©

Instagram @ Jana_h_White