Raise Your Hand

Raise your hand

if you know the sound of a wood thrush at dawn

And the ways that the music of morning birds

weaves with skeins of a breaking day

And the burgeoning fibers of spring.

Raise your hand

if that sound

strums the memory of so many other mornings

Or dusky summer evenings of home

Or the way those liquid notes

Seep into your heart somehow

As you sit in the woods week after week

And wake up

Again

Raise your hand

if you remember that one time

That one time, my goodness

That one time the thrushes maybe saved your life

The morning after the day of unbearable darkness

When you went to the woods

You laid down and wept

By the waters

And as your grieving song broke the stillness of first light

A holy throng of little brown birds

Came and sang all around you

They sang with you

And for you

And helped remind you that

Really and truly

We are not alone.

We are remembered.

We are known.

Raise your hand.

Raise your hands.

Raise them high.