YOU FIND YOURSELF IN THE STILLNESS OF DAWN

by Virginia McIntyre

Sea water sweeps

the slender spit

where you stand

in the shallow warm swill

of the estuary. The weight

of atmosphere presses

against your body

burrows beneath your skin

into every pore

infusing a birdness

in your collarbone

a treeness in your spine.

Bird calls

ping

in your palms.

You are inside the keer

of a hawk and the skirl

of an eagle greeting its young.

You move through

a membrane of time

through a swarm of sounds

the sea hissing across sand

small waves unfurling

along the shoreline

a low gurgle

in the throat of the river

a rattle of pebbles

clattering beneath foam

air popping

in a retreating froth

the breath of barnacles.

Time goes by before you notice

the humming. Humming shells

humming your spirit

into the small and intimate

into a colony of life

in sediments of moss

seaweed and silt.

Your eyes dissolve

your body

into the footprints

of a merganser

and you know

what it is to dive

for food with

your serrated beak.

Your bathe in the wake

of a green winged teal

in its silver script

of awareness

you call prayer.