BC Parks Foundation

I am not the wind sent by the sea or mountains.
I can’t soothe your soul the way
A summer breeze makes branches move and leaves dance freely,
Sometimes even coaxing the sturdy trees to forget their roots and sway in silent rhapsody.

I am neither a rainforest, nor a river.
I can’t help you find your destiny
The way the salmon return to their birthplace
Even after wandering the unmarked and ever-changing ocean for years.

I know not the way that water wanders above the earth
Falls on mountains and then searches relentlessly for the sea.
I can’t describe a spirit bear, waiting patiently for flashes of red in the river,
So she can feed her cubs after an especially long and cold winter season.

I have nothing to share about sacrifice
About giving one’s all, about being one with all.
I don’t even truly understand that it is miracle enough
To be a part of the cycle of life, to keep the world alive, being in being.

Least of all, I am hopeless at kindling your hope
As can the last white swans on Lonesome Lake
The family that hauled sacks of food for days to feed them winter after winter,
The people who gave so that the land is now protected forever.

I can’t even move you by singing something small and fleeting
Like the song of a golden crowned sparrow.
I can’t murmur as beautifully the hum and whir of bees, cicadas, and hummingbirds, or
Open your heart’s door a crack as can the kr-r-r-rek of a tiny green pacific tree frog.

And what of the things made from awe and wonder?
What could I possibly say about the sun’s dawning light?
I mean, how could I even begin to capture those long moments of majesty when
The earth’s gentle turning reveals the sun in her golden chariot

Riding out of the dark night, outshining the stars all together
Such that sometimes even the grumbling grey moon
Stays up in the blue sky, forgetting its barren complaints,
Remembering, instead, the eternal promise of a new day.

- Andy Day