Sacred Space

Sacred Space

 

Where we lived in New York, a stone path led to

a meditation garden that we designed and

built over the course of two summers.

 

A stone Japanese lantern marked a turn

in the path that took us to a wooden bench

that overlooked the smaller of our two ponds.

 

The pond was home to tadpoles and bullfrogs,

spring peepers, two mated mallards that

visited us each year, muskrats, deer and

 

an occasional blue heron, magnificent

dragonflies and a wide, colorful and

musical collection of birds and insects.

 

That garden was a place of perfect peace

where I went to pause and to free my mind

of wasteful and exhausting commotion.

 

It is the place where my daughter was married,

where Barbara’s mother daily came and

near where  our well-loved dog’s ashes were spread.

 

So, when we moved to Gloucester, we took with us

the lantern and the bench and the sacredness

of that space and put them in a new quiet place

 

that looks over the gardens, down the hill

to the salt marsh and the tidal river;

where I listen to the  hidden ocean

 

and the bell buoy off  the Annisquam Light

and watch the gulls, egrets and herons over

the marsh and feel peace wash over me again.

 

Marty Luster