In This Isolation

       Today as the sun lifts there are

not enough Alleluia words.

Outside the door, lilacs wrap me

in a shawl of sweetness.

The horse meets me with a nicker

of gladness.  I open the gate and

she trots through clover alight with dew

that flies from her hoofs in tiny beacons.

The pink azalea shakes her sex-scented skirts.

Solomon’s Seal offers its inverted wine flutes

 beneath an atlas of new leaves.

A late owl croons goodbye to night

and the blue heron croaks back,

waving her wing-wands through the sky.

How the fern heads unroll is a symmetry

almost too perfect to bear.

All is precious in this moment. 

You are precious. We are precious.

We need not regret separation.

Isolation in this Alleluia-morning is a gift.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020

To Mother Earth, Alleluia

Dear Mother Earth

Someday our souls will slip from life

like water off a swan

and I say Alleluia.

They say this is your day,

Earth Day

but I know each moment,

they all belong to you

and I say Alleluia.

Oh Earth, I feel the sharp song

of our connection. I feel

the spear of your heartache

and hurt, I feel green everything,

green-blue, green-gold, green-black.

Everything is alive all in

a tumble of miracles

and I say Alleluia.

And now, Holy Earth,

I see it:  our ways must cease.

We must surrender, closing eyes

and giving breath over to you,

always only you

and I say Alleluia.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 4/22/2020

50^th Anniversary of Earth Day