Shell
To have only what we need
Space to the horizon
drawing us out
A songbird reminding us
there are more things in heaven and earth
The hawk that stalks it—
a taste of temporailty
A rock on which to sit when sweat comes;
a place to rest and consider the horizon
Wild blueberries whose blueness tantalizes;
whose juice becomes blood
A sun at zenith being warm:
comfort, mother of blueberries,
builder of lungs
A sweet suckable breeze
cool answer to a smothering other
bringer of invisible stuff from
respiring trees
A path under my feet between rocks and roots
following an incline to a bare ridge that appears and
disappears behind hemlock and pine, hovers over laurel,
is lost behind sharp outcrops, is sometimes clear as a bell
A curling, troubled stream
—bubbling cache of rain
Cupped hands
to pull it in
This beholding
shell
by Jim Culleny
5/21/11