In primordial forests of our making lies the original mystery.
It calls to us now from the tangled roots of our mortal mystery.
The turtle in the Gulf swims its long good-bye without grieving,
for it and its kind know without knowing; this is about mystery.
In the morning, fog blanketed the valley, veiling twisted oaks
in milky vapor. Don’t look too closely, insisted mystery.
By noon the mist burns off, revealing tended rows
of vines weighted with fruit in summer’s verdant mystery.
We dine on peaches marinated in wine and fragrant herbs
and the earth is well again. Grant us this moment, mystery.
Born in Kobe, Japan, Mari L’Esperance is a Hapa poet whose first full-length collection The Darkened Temple was awarded the 2007 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and published by the University of Nebraska Press in September 2008. An earlier collection Begin Here was awarded a Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press Chapbook Prize. A graduate of the Creative Writing Program at New York University and a recipient of fellowships and grants from The New York Times, Hedgebrook, and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, L’Esperance lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area.
*Photo courtesy of Phrosty.