Along the way I stop to see
If I can find the why of me
The "who am I" that's deep inside
The real me that tries to hide
But out I peek so you can glimpse
Now and again, just by chance
The curtain slips, defenses down
And for a moment, there I am
The who, the how, the why of me
To all but God, a mystery.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.