—with thanks to the wise Rebecca Mullen
Today, again, I praise the beaver
who spends her life building,
rebuilding, rebuilding
her lodge where her young will live.
With small sticks and big sticks
and tall solid trunks,
with logs and rocks and mud,
with her teeth she builds a home,
builds it on moving water.
Because rain, because snow,
because warm, because cold,
because flow, because flow, because flow,
her home is forever in need of repair.
And so on a day when a surprise storm
has flooded the stream
and washed much of my lodge away,
I honor the beaver,
stalwart, resilient, habitual.
I notice the longing to move to land,
then I gather new sticks of courage.
Stones of forgiveness.
Logs of compassion
and the deep sticky mud of love.
I wade to the middle
of the current.
I, like all the other mothers,
I build this home again.