What Can I Say

Begin Book Swan

 

What can I say that I have not said before?

So I'll say it again.

The leaf has a song in it.

Stone is face of patience.

Inside the river there is an unfinishable story

and you are somewhere in it

and it will never end until all ends.

Take your buy heart to the art museum and the

chamber of commerce

but take it also to the forest.

The song you heard singing in the leaf when you

were a child

is singing still.

I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,

and the leaf is singing still.

I recall now how as a young child, in the years before elementary school began and up until adolescence I would go to the woods, and sing.  I sang to the trees and to the birds.  I don't remember the words I uttered or what I heard back.  Whatever were the melody or lyrics, I knew I did not sing alone. 

Then in the rush for acceptance and career, I quit singing and listening although the pied piper allure of the earth still pulled on me to follow. Eventually I went to work in conservation in Latin America, and I once again heard the notes loud and clear in the tropical forests.

A few years ago I spent about 3 weeks in the largest, wildest forest yet of my life - the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala.  When it came time to leave, I spontaneously wept for I was leaving my friend and journeying far from the beauty.

What I strive for in my days is to know that beauty is never far from me, for it is in me, in leaf, in bird, in you.  There is beauty all around, and it sings.

To whom do you sing?