8am – City Girl
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.
