Purification
When the sun rises
I do not always notice
how she mottles the clouds
with pink and gold and silver,
moment by moment changing colors.
I do not always appreciate her presence
nor exalt her life-giving warmth.
Ah, but the good earth notices
and feels the roots of her trees
and every slumbering thing
reawakening each spring.
The birds and squirrels understand
the magnanimous shelter of their green canopy.
Cherry trees, star magnolias, dogwoods
flower in her honor.
Seeing a squirrel draped over a limb,
basking in her presence, I am reminded
to keep my appointment with the crimson-
leafed beech. I walk deep into the woods
of Pine Brook, run my fingers over the beech’s
elephantine skin, marvel at its quiet flourishing.
Tucked away from man’s intrusion, this tree
is a refuge. Anew I appreciate the soft voices
of the woodland, the moss beneath my bare feet,
the coolness of the brook drunk by so many creatures.
Not to be happy seems wasteful
for in these moments of pure attention
I reconsecrate my relationship with my own nature.
Lynn Palumbo is a practicing Zen Buddhist with a love of waterscapes. Her poetry has appeared in Urthona (UK, a Buddhist journal), The Avocet (USA) and a Tiferet anthology (USA). Her essays have appeared in Braided Way and Tiferet, and short fiction also in Tiferet. A former teacher of English on the college level, she is a devotee of Romantic and medieval English poetry and the transcendentalists. She is currently writing a YA novel.
Amethyst Review 