Jeanne Lohmann

A field of light, and my need to say
that it exists. Each morning I walk here
almost blinded by water the sun shines on...

Limestone and granite give back radiance, and we
Walkers in this field lift our feet and set out,
moving through our once and only mornings,
afternoons... What if light
did not find itself renewable? As my necessity
for these words, mirrors I carry into the sun
of this blazing day, this dance, this carnival
where I am given access to another world,
to the spirits who walk with me

In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring,
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.

Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin's difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.

...At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,
finish my task in the world? Learn at least one
of the many names of God? At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another
ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

We come into this stillness like snowfall, the air alive with angels, every blessed flake singular and mysterious, what's outside quiet now, and changing form. Quickening, we breathe silence. Presence holds our lives in hush. Light dazzles. Listening, we learn to answer.