Marie Gauthier

Spell to Be Said upon Waking

Trout’s maculate body,
delible house of the wasps’ nests,
white face of the horse —

Draw close.
A shadow closes your foxgrass,
lichens your boulders.

Cloudy the vow of the leaf in the water.

Lion, where is your hunger?
Come tortoise, come river, eat.

Desire, walk easily now through the wild net
of birchwood in rain,
on mountain-back carry the brindled immeasurable day.

— Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart (HarperPerennial, 1997)

Happy Thanksgiving!