How Quiet
How quiet is the spruce,
the wind twills
through the uppermost tier
of splayed leaves.
Now the song of a bird
like the squeaky lock
over a canoe's oar,
followed by startling chirps,
the sky pushing its clouds
like sailboats,
and I think, what kind of God
keeps himself secret
so that to find him out
we have to seek, as children do
for something like the beetle
scuttling between grass,
hidden in plain sight.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2013 by Judith Harris, “How Quiet,” from Night Garden, (Tiger Bark Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Judith Harris and the publisher.