Permission
As you step inside this blessing,
notice where you are,
and hear
the sounds it makes: sizzle of waves’
tumble and summersault.
Notice the smell
of fish and salt on the wind, the feel
of wind’s fingers, roughing up
your loose hair.
The grasses on the sand dunes feel
this blessing and its music:
they sway
and rustle like tiny maracas.
As you step inside this blessing
step again, again, and run,
(or try to)
down the dry, squishy sand to the sand
that’s firmer near the sea,
and step
and step again, lifting your feet up high,
and—look—go on—go on—
no one’s around—
you can dance now—
"Blessing with Many Rooms" (excerpt) © Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings. Used by permission. janrichardson.com
Johanna Caton, O.S.B, is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey, in Kent, England. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, St Austin Review, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, One Art, Today’s American Catholic, Fathom, Fare Forward, Windhover, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Amethyst Review 