Sleeping with the Universe Beyond the action of creation lies a great repose. You can see this in a wildflower – the closing of petals in tight lashes against a lidded night – or in the breaths between a burst of bird– song: this lull unknown to highly cultivated peoples, places, plants. You can see it today in the falling away, overnight, of leaves from the live oak, exposing an amazing maze of boles, terminal buds, and holes for nesting in the dark. You can see this in the gardenia – its leaves cold-snapped into crackling paper curled to protect the tender growth – or in the dust flecks resting on the pocked marble-top table or in the hush of the porch rocker or in the sag of a telephone wire or in the pulsating of a star. All attest to this universal need known to artists, children, poets, who, poised in mystery, must watch and wait and wonder.
Now Available from Hiraeth Press
This collection connects us to ourselves, each other, and the earth. As an important part of our own environments, we’re also part of the complexities of nature, including human nature and those odd thoughts and moments that bring humor, wonder, perplexity, and prayer.
Mary Harwell Sayler and her husband live in rural North Florida where a variety of wildlife and poetic topics abound. Her career as a freelance writer has focused on fiction and nonfiction for all age groups with twenty-five traditionally published books.