Birthday Benediction

Just before sunset yesterday

I saw a blue heron

rise up from under the bridge

where I stood,

and lift itself silently over the water, 

floating away over the swollen creek 

into the tops of the trees.

And the warm, moist air,

full of the smell of the river,

and the rich scent of thawing earth

blew softly through my hair,

and the gently dying sun

reached out across the yellow fields

from its throbbing crimson bed 

and touched my face,

and the river and the trees and the heron

quiet, reverent,

all watched in approving silence.

Your own soul is a kingdom, 

the river said to me,

a vast continent, 

a wonderland,

and it offers itself to you

when you come to it 

in peace.