I wrote this in my book one day after a long walk. It said, This is how the hawk prays. Instead of words I made a sign. A cross. It spiraled around the page. He doesn’t kneel. His is the prayer that asks for sky. His is the prayer that asks for blue. His is the prayer that wants to be fed by light and grass and a wide field. The hawk looks forward to noon. He wants to be the first one awake. Tonight, I will go to find where the hawk sleeps. I will whisper in his ear, How? Then I’ll know his secret. When I circle the things below will scatter, too. And from that motion in the grass that isn’t wind I will be fed. O, god of my god, let me confuse his shadow for mine. Let me see how circling comes to a point, then stoops, then climbs, relieved.
wrote
The World Is Filled with Wonder. My House Is in the World.
Wonder came to me. I wrote her name in my book. I said to her, Love? And she said, Love. Together we went to the sea. And together we named each wave. This one is Sammy, and this one is Larry, and this one is Henry, and this one is Todd. And this is how I spent my life. A few unhappy stars loosed themselves from the night. Even these are wonderful, I thought. Is there nothing in this world that isn’t like you? I said. And she said, Listen. It was the sea’s word she wanted me to hear. And it wasn’t Sammy. And it wasn’t Todd. It was exactly what I needed. So I listened for the first time ever. And I heard the word the sea had been trying to say. Who else? I wondered. Then it all seemed clear again. The sky, the neighborhood, the field. I tried to make it back to the house before it all could slip away. My book lie open on the table. The pages wrote themselves: The world is filled with wonder. My house is in the world.
What Seeking Means
Whole days feel like funerals. Nights come and go. Days too long for recording. I go, and asked the mountain top, Yes? And then it occurs to me. The wind is a thing on a list of things, too. Still, who can feel good facing a new direction, when the old one seems so here, so present? I wrote a thousand stories in the book. The book assumed the characteristics of its writer, and when I looked it wasn’t me. It wasn’t the man who initially put his pen to paper. I called for experts to test the results. And they did. And I asked them, Well? The answers they gave were satisfactory, but just. And just… Tonight, I seek to step out of my house. Seeking is enough. Seeking means this isn’t enough. And just as I am about to die, I ask, What else? And finally the words of a book I used to know by heart come rushing in to fill the waste. This isn’t hell, but paradise…
The First Words Last
Let’s pretend I wrote a book. Let’s pretend you are reading it now. Let’s pretend we were childhood friends. Let’s pretend that sometimes when you dream you dream of me. And there, where we find each other, you ask me finally, Who? And I go on circling and circling. Or I stoop, and when I light, between two talons I hold my food. Later, when you wake and try to retell what you dreamed, I am there. Not as I was but in some new form. A fly scaling the chandelier, a leaf the wind blew inside the house, a noise of engines roaring far away, a loose hair fallen from your head. Hold me, as the blessing says, in the hollow of your hand. For now you will be my god, and I will pray to you. It is your job to listen or turn away. Here are the first words. Here are the last.
There Never Was a Wound
The wind said, Beautiful. And I was listening. So I went back into my house, and tried to record what I had heard. I wrote in my book, Beautiful. I said, The wind said, Beautiful. That wasn’t enough. I went back out again, and I asked the wind, What? And she touched my like a mother. She said, Beautiful. And then I understood. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to weep. I didn’t feel the distance between myself and things. And maybe it’s true. Maybe I had been healed. Or maybe, it was revealed there never was a wound. Or, if there was, then a vital one. A one before which nothing lives or dies. When I am dead, I know, that I’ll be dead, as along as until then I know I am alive. What does this mean? I asked the sea, and she said, Shh. And I asked the trees, and they agreed.
One Whose Name Is Writ In Water 