For, to love another is to address to that person the most powerful and imperious form of appeal. It is to stir up in his or her depths a silent and hidden person forced to emerge in response to our voice, so new that even its owner did not know it, yet so true that he or she cannot fail to recognize it, even though seeing it for the first time.
Silent and still
my father stands
before our summer shelter
He is thinking a prayer
to the Holy Ones,
asking them
this day
to keep our feet
on the trail of beauty.
Filling the silence
of my father's prayer
I hear the bluebird's song.