I am air

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“I copy out mountains, rivers, clouds.
I take my pen from pocket. I note down
a bird in its rising
or a spider in its little silkworks.
Nothing else crosses my mind. I am air,
clear air, where the wheat is waving,
where a bird's flight moves me, the uncertain
fall of a leaf, the globular
eye of a fish unmoving in the lake,
the statues sailing in the clouds,
the intricate variations of the rain.

Nothing else crosses my mind except
the transparency of summer. I sing only of the wind,
and history passes in its carriage,
collecting its shrouds and medals,
and passes, and all I feel is rivers.
I stay alone with the spring.”

-From “Pastoral” by Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)


Thank you, Karen Suzy

Photo taken at Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area

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