For Rebecca
(Beloveds: You have seen this before, but it is my favorite spring poem, and I wanted to share it again.)
I met God again at the river today.
Not in one of Her more glamorous guises,
only as an alder tree.
Only a plain simple alder tree
crouching by the water—you know how they do—
reaching out to dip its lower branches in
with new spring leaves fully unfurled.
Not even a very big alder tree
just a simple small one,
and I contemplated the simplicity of God:
the way God is just there
all the time
in the background
making oxygen
so we can breathe.
And then four swallows swooped in
and rose up
and swooped and dived
and rose up again
in ecstatic aerial ballet
And then a pair of mergansers flew
wings pumping fast and hard
across my line of sight
And then a redbud tree
extravagantly decorated in deep pink blossom
waved its branches a little
and the bright orange poppies
demurely nodded their heads
And I could no longer contemplate
the simplicity of God
but only Her wild, wild beauty.