BY Molly Frederick

There are secrets all around us.
Today, for no clear reason, a
light flashed twice at my window.

What was it?

Was it the sudden gleam
from an aircraft banking?
Perhaps a helicopter
changing course?
A shining drone
looking down, looking in.

Was it a white bird’s wings
catching morning light,
or a small cloud passing?

 Later, when I walked home,
as I turned one last corner,
a dark shadow preceded me.
Nothing seemed to
have caused it –
it just glided by, and was gone.

What else are we missing?
What’s really going on?

What if the eye, the ear,
and our other senses
(including the sense they call
the sixth)
are missing almost everything,
and we dwell in a land of giants,
which are only letting us live
a little longer?

And, to some extent, that’s true.
Secrets and imponderables.
Light and dark. Everything so true.
And yet – not true.

There are secrets all around us.

I am a poet of the natural world – of the moment my breath stops when I see something in nature. There are no words that can contain those experiences, but still I try. With each revision needed to describe what was there and what it meant, I manage to re-live what happened again and again. And, I also want to offer what I’ve experienced to someone else through poetry.

For most of my life I’ve been around – and centered by – these entrances into unexpected mystical moments. Sometimes I also paint or make a wood piece to understand what’s there. But always it’s about the seeing-through, the fascination.

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