Before I Go

 Before I Go

Before I go, once again

I want to find a columbine

flourishing among the weeds

in some woe-begotten waste;

hear a bird I do not know,

whose song will make me shiver

like the first time I heard 

a wood thrush off in the dusk;

walk around an old oak

beneath its generous branches,

and feel the loyalty of its years

as it grips the soil beneath;

stand under a winter night

with its blanket of stars 

stretching from one side

of the world to the other;

and be so close to miracle 

I feel the breath of eternity.

First Place Winner, Pennsylvania Poetry Society, 2020