charlevoix summer
with c. taylor

Hopkins’ dawn-drawn falcon,
bright-eyed searcher
over roadside field and shrubs,
settles on treetop branch.
Slate-blue wings fold
to dappled feathered chest,
a telltale klee klee klee
calls the sun from rest.

Grasses and wildflowers,
gloriously oblivious
spread over hill, down road,
become home for mole and mouse.
Viper’s-bugloss, riotous purple, pink,
pearly everlasting, perfectly white,
yellow-button tansy,
perfect delight.

Defining geologic feature,
four-hundred-million-year-old crater,
from la malbaie to baie saint-paul
hills, valleys, plateaus, river.
Shatter cone striations,
veins of glassy melted rock
witness in ancient crust
unimagined heat and shock.

Mer et monde,
estuary and mountains;
water, waves, trees, trails
meld in/with heart and mind.
Invocation without words,
presence without epiclesis,
landscape, land inviting
immersive meaning, praise.

Red shingle-sided church on hill,
unplugged, analog we sing;
simplicity in form and friends,
remnant, local gathering.
Fresh garden flowers adorn table,
word read, prayers spoken
voices rise, soft praise,
wine poured, bread broken.

Prepared table in the wildness;
gratitude in lifted hands,
reverence in sitting, kneeling,
liturgy, ancient dance.
Sacrament of grace, mercy
ensconced within creation
anamnesis well surpassed,
Christ descends, simplest station.

Resist dead-end disenchantment,
hollow, hollowing modern mind,
nature more than mere causation,
measured, dated, or observed.
Cosmic open invitation,
poet as creation’s voice,
to encounter world
bring others close.

Another ancient sea,
plate tectonic rift,
coals tended on its shore,
breakfast bread, fish.
This one, this place, this food,
life in divine wild,
not instance but exemplar, ground,
sacrament in slow holy fire.