John Muir’s Water Ouzel
The psalmist of the waterfalls, It nests beside the mountain streams And in my musings often calls And often flashes through my dreams . . . I have not seen, I have not heard, The bird, not shall I hear or see, But Muir with many a reverent word Has loved it into life for […]
Easter Absolution
The earth has long done penance In ashen garb of woe For the great sin the sons of men Committed long ago. But now the winter’s sorrow wins Peace for the ancient pain, And spring’s forgiving grass returns, And spring’s absolving rain. –Saturday Evening Post, 1947 (written in 1942) –republished in Halfway Up the Sky
The Song Beyond
It always seemed to her, her whole life through, There was a song that only she could sing Waiting a little way beyond the blue Clear air of evening gentled by the wing Of one white bird, a little way beyond The haze that lay forever on her hills; A song to which men’s spirits […]