NATURE Poem: Moonlit Stillness, by Eliina Pajunen

Evening, when the shadows deepen
their embrace, when the land

bids tender farewell to the sunlight
psychedelic inch by inch, and some

begin our rest, others waking or flying to go out in awe,
in play, or on the prowl, the mosses on the rocks

and the fern in the wood begin their nightly dewing,
the delicate drops of reflection may they never fail

to delight the early risers. The mosses which quietly, humbly,
keep to their essential function, that of the same nature

as that of the stars and the orbital paths
planets glide along in workless industry

moving as not toward a goal, but in submission
to process, as if they also know

that the universe is founded in love, that the same
gentle force which undergirds the migration

of sparrows and the phases of the moon
is love, more fundamental and just as lovely

as anything like a kiss. And the little stresses
I weep on seem nothingness, when under the moon

on a log in the woods I look, and looking realize
that the essence of things is love and the reception

of love, and the fruit of love,
which is change. The mosses and I are kin.