These may be the truest of life,

to eat marionberries or Cox’s Orange Pippins

on a day that glimmers with laughter spilled

and simple promises made and kept

or to sit cross legged under pine and cedar,

attend to doings of blue jay and hawk, and

sniff wind’s foretelling of rain and smoke.

Or to gather up wiggling twin beings,

my arms stretched to bundle affection or need,

my heart breaking and mending with

a certain sort of love’s lightning strikes.

This, that, these–they command an entire universe.

They all know and sow certain secrets.

Even the babies’ eyes, how they find

the might of smallest, momentary things,

and deep-see even me, and oh how we

welcome each other, no reservations.

All instructs me to care more, more:

to savor abundance of apple and berry;

to draw close to the fire of forest gifts;

to hear winged things telegraph wisdom;

to find more when there may seem less,

to discover wee hands tender and sure,