Retreat at Martins River, 2018

Martins River, 2018

Church bells to lean against;

Cape Islanders, sailboats, and dories

in reunion before me.

You, silver-winking in your delight

with the lot of it: with the purple house 

and the teal one next door;

with the boats and their sleep nodding prows; 

with the masts trying to reach you;

with the gulls who play tag with you; 

with the syncopated pealing of carillons;

with the lemon rhubarb scone

that is the taste of every springtime color 

and a sticky hum of summer’s freedom.

I don’t bother with a napkin

even though my fingers

are lightly tacky with delicious.

At best, maybe

that is what awe and wonder are…

Not the experience itself,

but what remains

to allow us to enter into,

to open out onto,

your presence

over and still again.

—Kimberly M. King, RSCJ—