Immersed
To walk here is poetry.
I breathe in the benevolence of the meadow, humming and generous.
Wonder and ambiguity brush golden against a Chicory sky,
Where clouds drift spontaneous as milkweed floss falling onto a breeze.
I am anonymous and alive.
There is only surrender — To Sun. To Nature. To Myself.
Late summer brings the wisdom of senescence, both spare and abundant.
The black head of a coneflower is a lost sea anemone clinging to a curved stem,
Its keen bracts beguile beneath clusters of butterscotch sunflowers enduring.
The seeds hold Earth’s intricacies.
The spines hold Earth’s intimacies.
A tuft of butter-yellow down snagged from a seeding frenzy,
While a goldfinch trilled and swayed one echinacea afternoon.
Feather and flower are now my story, too.
I inhabit this meadow; I am observer and archivist.
She spares many enchantments,
The stained-glass panels of sun-drenched Monarchs,
Flashes of red fox, encouraging my inspirations,
Silver-haired lovers huddled on their bench,
A four-point Buck guarding The Peace of Wild Things, when evening glows and boys wander.
My dear poet Mukul brought me here in homage to our Literature Moments,
A mentor’s gift ever more precious as I turn inward toward loss.
Rarely do we still walk together, though his guidance fills this Greenway,
On the wings of a Barred Owl, arranging feathers inside our favorite Oak.
Will we ever see it? Hear it?
Perhaps at night, when gilded shadows lure our creative spirits closer,
And traumatic endings finally forge new pathways to forgiveness.
A friend dreams I nurse a Bald Eagle to health, high in its sprawling nest.
Were we above the Poetry Trail, I ask, hopefully? She’s unsure.
I know just the tree, and all day I long to climb it,
Threads of amber pine sap sticking to my palms.
Once upon a time, they mowed these grasses to dust — Meadow erased. Heart broken.
Immersed today in its vibrance is to know life, blooming and senescing.
Always tomorrow, She is waiting.
Every heartbeat, I belong.
To walk here is hope.
By Diana Lasseter Drake