Sparkling creek and untainted air

Rocks rise underfeet

Civilization momentarily left behind

As mountains rise up on either side.

Sunlight warms to make heavy the air

Until the breeze tears

Through above the icy water

If you breathe deeply enough, it will make you alive.

 

City girl,

Lulled to sleep by nature’s song

Her soft sounds, her apparent drowsiness

As the waters tumble and leaves flutter.

There is much more noise in the city,

Constant stimulation,

Hustle and bustle and Tweets and the daily offence

With every turn of your head.

The voice of the city is shallow,

and shallowly we respond to it,

With unthought words and hollow feelings

And poses on our screens.

No wonder nature makes the city girl drowsy:

She is so used to hustle and bustle,

To things happening, happening in her face.

But in nature, she must look.

 

As deep calls out to deep,

So calls the voice of

The earth, the air, the rocks, the trees

To the deep she has inside and has forgotten how to hear.

 

City girl sits on the rocks

Turns one over in her hands,

Rough edges sensitizing smooth fingers.

Slowly the relative silence of nature

Clears the muddied shallows of the waters of her mind.

She stands

Touches the leaf of an aspen on the banks

Watches in her soul as it becomes alive,

Breathing sunlight,

Raising bark and branch and heartwood

High above her head

Into the limitless, living sky.

Sparkling creek and untainted air,

Rocks rising underfeet,

She breathes,

And connects in her heart to the deep.