22

The blank page morning after morning.

The cardinal in the tall grass below the feeders.

The mouse with whom I share the back porch.

In the distance, cumuli gather on top of one another and stray towards the sea.

What goes unhurried goes blessed.

The sentences are a dedication.

A declaration.

Goldenrod by the fence, chickens nestling in the dust.

Morning after morning the blank page appears and is filled.

A long day of writing followed by another long day of writing.

We find our practice and it sustains us.

It urges us.

In the first letter she sent after she left she she wrote, "let what guides you guide you and do not be fickle about its intention."

Some mornings I walk by the brook and stop to admire stones I have known for forty years.

There are birch trees beneath which ancient fire pits contain so much pain one wonders if relief is even possible.

Horse graves from which sapling maples now stand, a tiny grove in which chickadees nest, apparently happy.

The world will make a place for you, a place in which you will know at last the grace of God and the utter absence of anything else, but you must accept it.

Yes is the necessary syllable.

I begin with twenty sentences, no one more precious than another.

I say yes: yes.