My Shell Barely Cracked

My Shell Barely Cracked
 
Joining joyful swifts and weeping willows
still surfing break of day, pillowed banks
of gangs of clouds converged their herd
along the western ridge; formed a bridge,
and stayed to play. Torrents make strong
currents. The moaning Wabash River
groaned full against its bank, where
keening pines flanked: its rushing trek
merged stream and beck bashing stone to
stone crashing them along its way and
dreaming icy shivered songs down inside
that river’s spine.  Those gleaming
limestone bones, abide alone, pushing
driven hard against the gridlocked pine.
 
I love this world, this sacred world, its burled
trees, it’s unfurled flowers, its white pearled
shells and loamy smells so laced into the froth
of life, the very broth of space and Soul.
I love sweet birdsong, plan for wings, join the
singing, echoed drifts of swifts still clinging
to the blue of sky at eve, shredding now its
gloaming light as if I might weave with swallows,
into darker light; swallows, swallowing the bright. 
 
But I’m a youngster compared to Oaks and any
note I sang or spoke when my shell barely cracked
those ancient Oaks heard just one word.  I emerged
looked squarely West and standing forth on rubber
bones with squinting eyes, ablur: feeding on the lure
of glinting light cast out before me. I listened to the
stones. Vast, the moment I vowed to wander, to
write the wonder and sing of winging night with
sweeps, of dancing by the beck with weeping willows,
of sleeping ‘neath the Oaks, who taught me my one
lone Word.  
Yes.
 
 
by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 2020