By Michele Mekel
I walk in the woods, by streams, over rocks.
Each step: prayer, petition, offering—
To the trillium peeking shyly through the carpet
of last year’s leaves,
To the thorny black locust that I’m drawn—
against all rational judgment—to caress,
To the corvid troubadour who announces my approach—
a sovereign from a land merely on loan,
To the spring waters rushing so as not to be late
to some far-off confluence,
And to the multitude of beings more skilled at equanimity
than I can ever hope to be.