Sanctuary

[Written before dawn on High Lake near Traverse City, Michigan]

There are in northern Michigan more lakes than can be counted on a map.

Cupped hands that hold the overflow of secret springs or creeks and rivers 

stretching across the mitt like life-lines ‘cross an open palm. 

Once surrounded only by towering pine and mighty oak 

and intermittent lines of white-washed birch—

a vertical throng of reverence to the holy sky.

Once unseen but for eyes afoot in moccasins awake at break of day. . .

to worship in the still reflection of the dawn amid the praise 

of a distant woodpecker tapping time to the tune of thrush and robin 

and the coo of mourning doves whose song is sullied 

by the gibes of an incessant jay.  Each to his own . . .

as the red sphere peeks above the trees 

where just the night before a loon 

was sighing lonely salutations to the moon. 

(C)2013 Tom Kapanka