Wild Rose
The blush of Wild Rose
stops me in my tracks, breathless.
While unabashed they
swell, blossom fragrant, heady.
Madly I devour their scent.
After walking through a hedge of bayberry, down the forty eight step skeletal stairway that frames our descent of the red cape, my husband and I wandered the sandstone shore a while. We then sat and looked out upon the calm, blue Atlantic, still frigid in early July after a late winter. Quietly I thought about the wildness of this world.
Why do we deny its beauty? Endlessly seek to manipulate, manage, and control? What aspects of ourselves do we lose in this process? What have we quelled in our desperate quest for order, power and security? What havoc has our need to dominate wrought upon the world?
How can we fall in love with the wildness of the Earth again?
Without a doubt I know we cannot fall in love with the Earth unless we slow down and make time to experience its wonders. Today I did just this:
I walked slowly enough that my steps fell into the rhythm of my breath. Stopped to swat the mosquito which was feasting on my flesh. Remembered that my blood feeds its young and that it pollinates the flowers by the cape. Turned quickly as a flash of green caught my eye. A grasshopper called my gaze to tiny things. It hopped away and I noticed a blood red trailing vine creep across the ground at my feet. And what did this vine bear once I'd traced its tangle to the prize? The delicate taste of tart sunshine, with a hint of strawberry sweetness that only wild strawberry can impart upon willing lips, tongues. My mouth became a tiny festival of summertime. Songs sang inside me and I swooned in return.
With ten thousand different love songs, the wildness of an Island summer begs for our embrace. How willingly we respond is up to us.
To love this world is to heal our hearts, re-connect, and let the Earth heal.
Jill MacCormack
