Their lives are cast in shadows,


They who will not see you,


You who no one knows,


Not hearing your voice in the grass, talking,


Or in the pale wintry call


Of the tern,


Not hearing your voice of ashes,


Unaware of your presence in the flames


Of the waters that run,


That turn over the stones.


Still there is only you,


No one else anywhere,


You who stand behind all;


Within all.


With only a billion names


You are one.


In the night soul of the forest, oaken,


In the stalking


Of the insistent leopard,


In the power of the sea, cresting




In the word


Of the wind that so long wandered


By the bleak




Now there dawns the dancer in the sky overhead,


About whom none may speak,


And nothing may be said,


Not ever spoken.


There rise the flames of the names,




Standing still by the tall


Reeds in the lake of the sun,


Hearing your voice in all the rains


That ever were,




© Sharon St Joan, 2018


Photo: Vince Reinhart/“This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.”/Wikipedia/ Waterfall on the Chagrin River, Ohio