The trail below Nakusp frequently does haunt my mind.

It is a spring morning,

Hushed.

We are walking the trail, lined

With bright flowers, watching

Rivers of morning light

Rippling down the valleys,

Savouring a light breeze

Wrinkling the surface of the lake

Like gold foil in the sun.

 

 

 

Save for our own cathedral whisperings

There is only silence;

No rustling leaves, nor singing birds,

No purling brooks, no splash of trout.

 

 

 

There is the silence of the absence of movement:

Mountain peaks, snow still,

Dark, velvety, soundless trees,

And sunshine on the blooming flowers.

 

 

 

And the silence of movement:

The quiet undulation of tall grass,

The sun-clouds dappling the trees,

The stillness of the soaring eagle,

And the noiseless, distant, mountain mist.

 

 

 

It is a holy expansive stillness

Nature’s brooding calm.

It is Eden,

With divinity breathing quietude

In the cool of the morning.

All is peace and calm and revelation

As if creation had only just begun.

 

 

 

Lloyd Brown

St. John’s, Newfoundland