“The nightingale dips the truth into honey
and makes this into song”
Thirteenth Century Sheikh Tapduk Emre
Sing
Wood thrush flutes
amid dogwood flowers.
Sings reality to me,
veils it in aeolian cadences.
She and I
inhabit this green cloister,
our lives spent singing
among supple poplars.
Appalachian winds move
among their branches,
intoning grace and praise.
Chanting her spiral remembrance,
she is a Sufi clothed in simple brown.
I become dust at her delicate
crimson feet.
We take flight together;
sacred breath
inhabits my bones,
hollowed by the knife
of human limitations.
She, with bones made of air,
I with bones carved by grace,
our melody resonates in
the heart of the world.
From my book A Litany of Wild Graces
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There you’ll find Nesting Circles of Belonging
~ Family, Nature and Cosmos ~
Photo by Matheus Protzen