Watermark Sacred

WATERMARK SACRED
by Cliff Penwell


We are the slowest of the swimming mammals,
trapped in places where souls would not travel
of their own, but for the longing rooted in us.

Flight is still a mystery: by day our thin arms
do nothing for us; only at night do wishes
become owl's wings, lifting heavy bodies
dreaming more of breath than of blood.

For a litle while yet we must console
ourselves with images of stars--
little boxes, mirrors and wires sing to us
of our own majesty, ephemeral and layered
in tissues of glass and steel.

Where did we go? What happened to our
breath of creation, the alchemy of moist
and light renewing itself in ceremonies of gratitude?

Today we find love in God's secret places:
in a small glance, in moments that forgive,
in beds consecrated for lovers. And still,
these quiet revelations have their limits.

Somehow we know it is not like this.
Elders remember a season before this one,
when we knew the Great Pattern for itself,
not embedded in myths and riddles. Our story is
the myth, but the oceans are not governed in riddles.

The animals know they are not here for us;
they are here by us, though we do not
yet worship in the same forest.

Meanwhile, even as this system hurtles to Polaris
marking its measure in Solar Ages,
We note cycles of hope and possibility:
children blossom, temples flourish, wisdom joins us.

And me? For this one trust of blazing innocence
I am ready to trouble the waters.

--Whidbey Island, May 2006