dear nature

i can finally hear what the poets
stafford, hopkins and keats
oliver, dillard, whitman 
meant about you

poems i've read for decades now
ring truest sounds far above noise,
enliven a language that goes beyond
words framed only by sky

it is the far more companioned thing to
converse with the quiet and connect
to what they already knew and patiently
waited for me to grasp, and am grasping still

could this be why thoreau went into the woods
and what it might mean when owls call forth and back
or how it is that i can be more myself
when in fixed gaze with a hummingbird?

wind through varied leaves sings different songs
these not-as-silent-as-i-once-thought trees
are witnesses communing with me if i let them
a cause to welcome like a puppy's lick asking
for nothing in return but to say i am here
just now and so are you

wordsworth and his daffodils, dickinson's
feathered wings, they dress me in more finery than
imagination dares; and i answer by dancing
in such golden thread count

as can be woven by understanding,
pieced together with hope

3.24.16
ls