Hermit Thrushes at Dusk

This is how you heal, using your body to sing

Hermit Thrushes at Dusk
 
The long summer day’s gone quiet at last
in the open-air cathedral of the woods,
yet still I hear the hermit thrushes unraveling
their complex calls, like someone running
a finger along the rim of a wineglass
over and over, out in the trees, their music
made more precious by the silence
surrounding it, more necessary by the worry
that encircled me all day, keeping me
from this world I love. I listen, freeing myself
from the tangled roots of a pain
that’s not my own, and drink in those clear
liquid notes like a medicine, a message
I have craved my whole life without knowing:
Let go of all that you no longer need.
This is how you heal, using your body to sing.

- James Crews