The silhouette of a tiny pine
clinging to the bare face 
of a stone-carved cliff.

The first crocus 
showing its bright color against the grass
at the base of a paper-bark birch tree.

The hands of old men
softly cradling the faces of small children
who will barely remember them.

The deeply etched lines
in the incredibly soft faces of old women,
clutching at the corners of their eyes
while they laugh with friends at a corner table.

A hanging diamond of blue Angel Fish
suspended beneath a stone arch
forty feet below the surface,
three thousand feet from the beach near Kona.

The cascade of clear water 
shearing across smooth stone
and tumbling into the foam
forty feet below the lip
of Cumberland Falls.

Tree-shaped shadows on the snow
in the wondrously brilliant glow
of a winter’s full moon.

The sparkling of the sun
on wind-rippled waters.

A daughter’s smile 
when she loves who she sees
when she walks into a room.

A son’s strength
in the gleaming sweat 
of fall harvest.

The gentle touch of a sympathetic woman
who understands the pain of hidden tears.

The slow roll of distant thunder
coming from dark clouds
promising rain in a hot, dry summer.

The openness of a prairie sky,
the closeness of a hardwood forest,
the vastness of giant cactus in a desert,
the seams of color in the smoothed raw ribbons
of a sandstone canyon.

The blur of hummingbird wings
hovering above the blooms of wildflowers.

The smell of honeysuckle
blooming on a heavy, humid night
in the fencerows of a gravel road
winding through ancient memories of childhood.

The quiet reverence of bowed heads
lined on hardwood pews
above the hardwood floors
of an old country church.

The whispers of eternity
that speak in the forests,
murmur in mountain waters,
breathing in the breeze sifting through the leaves
on the branches of an eighty-year-old cottonwood tree,
boughed in humble adoration.

H. Arnett
9/24/24