Stone Song

I am the echo in the stone
          off trail in the old growth forest.
     Sit here awhile by a bend in the stream
          whose irrational angle secretly fits
     with all other bending streams
          into a hidden circle
     that flows into and out of itself,
          nourishing eternity with one drink.
     Sit awhile in cathedral green.
Hasten not,
          for you are an elder now,
     and after you drink of this circle
          listen deeply (I am the echo
     in the stone)
          and you will hear the beginning.
You will enter the small
          miracle of the perishing
     immediate.
          And if you look well,
     your look will become a gaze.
You will see how we mingle
          yet distil each element of ourselves
     to its particle of clarity,
          like this moth of scattered sunbeam
     flitting over sunken brook pebbles
          in a space between breezes
     which is the space between your breaths,
          fire on water,
     earth in air.
I am the bright echo
          in the breathing stone
     submerged, off trail, the pause,
          the listening, the glance become
     a gaze.
Taste and see.
         Hasten nowhere.
     The sweetest gift of elder age
         is not needing to arrive.
     It is enough
          just being on the Way.
__________

LINK to hear a reading of this poem. Took the photo 
on a hike to Green Lake, Mount Rainier.