Summer Morning, Stewart Glen

Two snowy egrets are a slash of beauty

in the heart of the lake in the heart of the glen.

They step—step--step, eyes nailing the depths.

Two white birds paint wavering echoes in the water.

Sun-turned morning glories sing back their glow,

swinging open to the potential of day on the shore.

 

Somewhere close, a little girl feels their beauty so hard,

she aches for something beyond language, wider than oxygen.

 

Egrets flex and extend the machinery of their legs,

prying the shallows for life that brings them life:

the fish, the frogs. The lake in the glen chimes with flowers

and birds and captures the slow faces of clouds.

 

The little girl inhales the breath of lake, plants, sun.

She lives in the body of an old woman.

Mud strokes her bare feet, cattails sway beneath dragonflies.

If only she could dwell inside this magic all the time.

 

For a few moments, the entire world rests

in perfect balance between itself and a forgotten child.

 

For a few moments, a melancholy girl with a heart too broken

to hold all her love inside becomes a white egret, asking for

nothing more than this wet moment in this very place.

In wonder, she spreads wide her wings.

 

Jennifer Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2024

Meditation at the Church of Earth

Begin at the highest summit and think downward.

Above: light to dark and back. Within you, your animal-sized land

and sea. Life moves in your body in sentient streams.

 

Thank each plant for the treasure of oxygen.  Feel

the gifts of plants in the yielding corners of your lungs.

Thank each animal for the lessons it teaches.

Remember wildness rocking in the soul of the tamed.

Ease your attention to the workings of your heart.

Red springs of life-force whip through your blood;

you recognize life as belonging to all who inherit its alchemy.

Invisible birds move in your body carrying in their beaks

strands of connection between all things that cannot be cut.

 

Your feet send movable roots into the ground everywhere you step.

Down through each layer of the planet, time’s signature speaks.

You enter the ultimate deepness in Earth’s core, the bass roar of magma

shifting like a fiery herd of mastodons.

 

You know yourself to be as fragile as a filament of silk.

 

Jennifer Pratt-Walter, © 2024

Night Sky 2

Continents of stars, infinite

stars…Yet I will not bow down

to them.  Instead I will stand in grandeur

like the silver maples whispering

along a favorite path

 

and arch out my limbs

to gather up their lights in the basket

of my mind.

 

The stars are as alive in their

rambles as I am beneath their

sharp glories.  We are shining

together, we are bioluminescent

in this pregnant night where

no questions curdle about if I matter

or not.

 

J. Pratt-Walter

NaPoMo 4/1/2022

Some Days

Some days all I can do

is open my mouth

and drink

the wild fitful

beauty

of all the world

seething through

the tides of my every

breath.     

J. Pratt-Walter

4/19/2019

Miracle

Everything cradled

there in the body’s night

can sense its own magnificence

if you remember how to gaze, creamy

and smooth, into the soul’s window.

Don’t be afraid to rove deeply 
into your own mysteries in

wonderment.

Know that you are a miracle

worthy of profound love

in how you give, walk,

listen, touch,

dream.

J. Pratt-Walter

© 2018