Print #48: Peach Sunset

The sun is setting, reflecting the trees in water. They stand proudly, spreading their branches as if to catch the last light of this peach sunset

Inspirational Poems

Water's Prayer

Leafless aspens groom
the iced breeze, while below

a brook descends the mountain
with its musical story, remembering

the serenity of sky, and lightning's clear passion.
Water knows what is far will be near.

Water says choose that which closes distance,
choose touch. When snow falls,

and a green mystery is carried
by all that moves,

choose love.

James Bertolino

At the Lake

A fish leaps
like a black pin --
then -- when the starlight
strikes its side --

like a silver pin.
In an instant
the fish's spine
alters the fierce line of rising

and it curls a little --
the head, like scalloped tin,
plunges back,
and it's gone.

This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there's a hermit's cave
full of light,

full of snow,
full of concentration.
I've knelt there,
and so have you,

hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely.
The lake's

shining sheets
don't make a ripple now,
and the stars
are going off to their blue sleep,

but the words are in place --
and the fish leaps, and leaps again
from the black plush of the poem,
that breathless space.

Mary Oliver

The Frozen Lake

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished
there in the cold light
reflecting cold snow

the true shape of your own face

David Whyte