Anna suffers from hives and excruciating back pain and yet she is able to summon her energies and concentration to articulate images that express pain, fear and relief with a poetic sensibility.

I used to be terrified of silence…it meant he could come and I had to be so still…like a stone, no breathing. If I play dead it won’t happen.

 A deep resonating stillness full of rustling pine needle sounds…..the shivery  slither of lizards …the soulful soughing of the breeze.

    When in the woods, or by the ocean or lake, silence is richly deepened by the aliveness of the critters, be they visible or so tiny we   can’t see them or identify them, or know them by name.

 Sliding through the grasses in eight inches of water…letting the movement of my hips be the propeller of my kayak….floating,… directed by the tidal pulls and pushes. Oh so quietly …I can rest my fear in this gently rocking water/mud/reed world.

 Sliding easily into a thicket of vertical greenness. Just there, the eyes of a baby seal surface….we gaze into each other – Saudade…..[ portuguese word] … tender sadness held by joy.

 In the cozy bed , on Lake Winnepasake…..the little gently lapping of waves quietly becomes me.  At the far shore…eww-who-ww-www…wwo.. a loon calls out her haunting song.  And many wave laps later is responded to by er mate...eww-eeww-whoow-w-w-w.

Safety and life cavort in these being-filled worlds; when being is buoyed by the distinct and delineated orchestra of otter, woodchuck ,waves.

 Silky, the water caresses this dear body as I slip skinny dipping into dark star-filled lake. No more playing dead….only playing, floating, dolphinning, caressed by moon and loon.

Anna