Nightfall Sketches at Waterside

A poem dedicated to my three children and my dear mother whose curiosity about and love of nature constantly inspires my own. Happy Mother's Day 2022!

Nightfall Sketches at Waterside

May 7th, 2022 8:45pm

A handful of Great Blue Herons

still as night at Waterside,

waiting

As daylight, blinking slowly,

escapes along the Pownal Bay.

One lifts off and seems to skim the water with slow, strong wing beats like fog rising in

An eloquence of physics words can’t match.

The sun- brilliant, treacherous beast-

has washed it all down with a stunning salmon brush across the western sky.

Made trees- gorgeous,still leafless beings who survived the long harsh winter--look skeletal and drawn.

Made the heron and the grey waters and golden marsh grasses

and sleeping sea ducks whose dark forms squint against the coming night, more real. Made the very idea of things more real.

Made truth feel like it must bear witness to beauty

exclaiming

there’s nothing between us that can bear hiding any more—

Who are we and what is this merging then? Another beginning or another end?

Or everything, right here.

A lone cow lowing in the distance.

Spring peepers calling from a nearby marsh.

Swamp Sparrow song hanging in the oddly frigid, springtime air.

And all the while a voice within also rising; surely, heron-like and poised against a tilt of water, skin and sky. We are Here, but only. Just. And this is enough.

Thanks for the beautiful evening visit to Waterside last eve! Love you, my three beloved children, M, L & C so very much--xo

Best wishes to all those with nurturing spirits, whose love and caring ways enrich the brightness of this beautiful world. Hope you are in a position that you can be with the mother of us all, this Earth, today.

Peace to all whose hearts are in grief. May you feel surrounded by love in your sorrow.

Thanks for reading,

Jill

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Jill M. MacCormack (she/her) neurodivergent writer and mindfulness meditation practitioner a kinder world begins with self-kindness :)