The hour a small device tells us the sun has risen
sometimes before the light of the sun is visible
before we have accepted 
that everything is always moving
and the new day is here

the way a long ago summer afternoon smelled
as cooling breezes wafted over waves
and people who knew us like home 
sat inches away discussing dreams 
the way it feels to live openly and without fear
the times that will be remembered as resonance
of deeper realities that give shape to language

the suddenness of the turning of tides 
and the clarity of voice that arises only after 
a silence full of subtleties 
that nature took millions of years to bring to life 
unwritten histories that have never been spoken
unspoken legends that were never intended
only felt and evaded or embraced
as the spirit moved us

what we know is only a thin sliver
of the cosmic map
thinner than a human hair
as compared to our centering roiling star

what we know is a small fraction of all that is
and yet it is also the full body of wonder and effort
that makes devotion possible 
and cooperation and rescue

so we hold in mind the almost lost 
and far flown favorite illuminations
the possibility of the next opening of spirit 
and the ever-changing map of our futures
personal and shared and parallel and conflicting 

our hope for overcoming 
and the wisdom living around us 
in forests and rivers and ant colonies 
and the low-flying languid graces of egrets

the question that is also an answer 
and a life story and a weather forecast
the one that needs no words 
and sifts the sands of experience until 
we can see what was always there