Life as Mystery

Like a primeval vision, mist lifts hazily
from the turgidly swollen water rushing along the
forested ravine. The mist aspires toward the sky,
as though to return to the darkly enveloping clouds
still lowering above, though a scant half-hour
before they had bathed the landscape in torrents
of rain, still gathering on hillsides and spilling
into the ravine below, freshly endowing the mud-roiling
creek, its surface surfeit with the storm's detritus.

The dark, outspread wings of crows crest on the
wet wind, their calls absorbed into the moist air.
Tree foliage, slick-bright in shades of living greens,
steadily drip excess. The fruit of the hazelnut shrubs
increasing their volume, well irrigated by nature's
generosity. A hare leaps into the underbrush, stops,
alert suddenly to instinct's ancient awareness
and the imperative invested in survival.

It is from a distance, although not remotely,
that the echo and re-echo of an owl reverberates
and repeats urgently, and the drenched but brilliant
landscape sinks into its mysterious thrum of life
and cessation, all assuming myriad forms
in the endless, purposeful pursuit whereby
each life form, each exceptional organism,
finds its hallowed place, and strives to retain it.