by J. Drew Lanham
If you can,
find some corner of the world
at peace.
A sliver of green. Water serene.
Wherever nearby. Far away.
Go there. Burrow in. Listen to birds.
Talk with frogs.
Turn off what you can’t control.
Turn on to something wild.
Be bold in your silence.
Do what you can where you are
to notice,
to nurture something good.
Something kind.
Something that slows your heart
quiets the mind
to drip-trickled thoughts —
even as the world shouts.
Let many desires rise
to a single love.
Whisper a prayer on the wind
to North, East, South, West
to whatever god(s) you wish.
You do not have to bow
or kneel.
Go straight on the winding path
at him or her or them.
Climb if you must. Sit.
Rest. Be still.
Ask for better.
Demand it.
Then –
breathe.
J. Drew Lanham is a native of Edgefield, South Carolina, and works as a Distinguished Alumni and Provost's Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, where he teaches and conducts research as a conservation and cultural ornithologist. An award-winning author, his book The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature won the Philip Reed Environmental Writing Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and was most recently named a "Scholarly Book of the Decade" by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Drew is also a poet, writing Sparrow Envy, and was named Poet Laureate of Edgefield County in 2018. He lives in Seneca, South Carolina.