Where is the place I can go, to hide
where no one can find me, secreted
within moss encrusted glades, lost
under stars hovering in radiant silence?

I did not find this place when I was young
or in the years when I gave my life to labor.
Then, thought I, rest will come, a time
of ease, when I can tend my spring garden
under the sheltering gaze of the past
beneath the western setting sun.

Yet, shouts of the present sound about me
calling my name, “where are you, where are you?”
I am loathe to say, “here I am, here I am”
wishing to tuck my head beneath broad leaves
into shadows cast by evergreen sentinels
watching over me, whispering stories
of what was, what is, what may yet be.

Hemmed I about by witnesses ancient and holy
birthed under the canopy of these northwest woods –
the peoples of the land chanting in my ears
pacific surf pounding inside me,
rattling old bones of memory and fear.

There is nowhere to go in this age
no sanctuary or safe harbor where I,
untouched by the swirl of clamoring voices,
can say “All is well, all will be well”
and feel inside that it is so, will be so.

The world – old, resplendent, grace filled –
beckons me out of all my hiding places
with the calm of wind through cedars,
the delight of birds alighting on branches, preening.
They are the touches, voices, and movements
of the present in its oft forgotten glory,
filtering, through green lavish life, the cacophony
swirling, in and all about me, furiously.

Portland, Oregon – March 3, 2017

I began this piece thinking about sanctuary for my brothers and sisters who fear deportation from our country.  I need do what I can to support and assist them.  But, as to poetry, I find that poems bend back to self before they can go elsewhere.  For poets, the question is appropriate: “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”