LATE SUMMER POEM

You must have seen it, at a crepuscule shore;   

It strikes as lightning does, trembling the sky,     

with summer rose and lilacs calling "more,"  

and the flash of white egrets as they fly.     

You must have heard it, crickets in the dusk,  

the flap of water on smooth stone and bark,  

the sound of a lone loon in the summer musk,  

the breath of your lover as she speaks in the dark.       

Self-centered, we cannot see God in ourselves,   

and in others we too often miss the divine;  

in nature, not ours, we sense eternal lives   

for a moment alive in our chattering minds.