May the Elements Endure. Amen.
We walk toward the sound of the ocean,
between these quiet hills, the lupine float in fog:
lavender clouds.
Here each bent stalk of native grass, each calla lily
flowing bridal white down the green aisle of the valley,
each wild silk bloom, and each bird singing against the sea
has taken millions of years to bring to this marriage.
This habitat so sensitive that our salt smell turns the heads of deer,
startles rabbits and holds back a bobcat in soundless watch;
our feet thundering down the packed dirt path, our voices roar over the ocean.
In Marin the wetlands are disappearing as the sun
disappears in this fog that swallows up the hills.
A Great Horned Owl carries night in her dark wings.
The sky is red when we reach the water’s edge,
a man doing Tai Chi is moving in waves,
the silent branches of his body.
We think of the old shipwreck
of the Tennessee
here on Tennessee Beach.
Then head home.
With earth still rising
under a long tide of clumsy feet,
each of our steps now
a prayer:
- Judith Stone