Beauty like a river; William Stanhope

Trust is the hardest thing
Believing that with enough
Silence, enough stillness
Our earthly tethers will
Slacken their hold just enough
To let the soul breathe

 Like a chained dog (testing,
A thousand times, the limits
Of its freedom)
Suddenly, by sheer Grace
No longer feeling the familiar
Chokehold in a last frenzied
Thrust away from every
Crushing thing

And there suspended mid air
In that brilliant moment
Beauty like a river
Flows all around and was
Never absent
Freedom like a wave
Sweeps every barren place
Anointing darkness with light
And a profusion of flowers

Hawkscry April 9, 2012
(This is the forst poem written in Dogwood Cottage)