Poet: Scott Russell Sanders | Composer: Lauren Bernofsky

Among all creatures, we are the only kind
that frets, the only kind that asks forgiveness,
or needs to. Meanwhile, crows palaver
in the pines, crickets sing in the high grass,
cottonwoods wag their leaves in every least wind.

Having held our tongues to listen, having fallen asleep
to the barred owl’s call and wakened to fog over the Mad
River, having seen the pond shiver like the taut hide
of a horse and the dew ignite with dawn, freed now to break
silence, we might find words to speak our love of Earth.