What are you doing for Lent this year?  Fasting from something? Attending to something?  I’ve journeyed through Lent in different ways: some have been challenging, some have been enlivening, some have been rather flat.  But no matter what I have done, I have been humbled; I’m never quite equal to the length of the Lenten journey.  However, the invitation still presents itself each year and I find myself tossing about ideas, ‘How will I engage the journey this year?’  Each year I come with just a little more humility.

Part of that humility this year nudged me not to journey alone.  So I wondered if my friend who enjoys birds as much as I do would take up a gentle Lenten journey this year with me.  She said yes.  We each chose 3 birds, plus one more.  My birds are: the Green-winged Teal, Anna’s Hummingbird, and the Great Blue Heron.  Hers are the Ruffed Grouse, the Capped Chickadee and the Common Loon.  Our plus-one is the Laysan Albatross.

Loosely we are following these lovelies around either on foot, or virtually by video, sound bytes, websites and images.  All this to write some poems…or try to write some poems.  This Lent we’re taking Jesus’ words ‘Looks at the birds’ quite literally to see what we will see.  We’re trying not to force something, so there might not be six poems.

My first of this series was “Green Teal Love” and Hidden is the second.

Hidden

In the gully
where the stream runs
and the undergrowth grows thick
is the Ruffed Grouse hiding
sneaking under the thatch
of tangled branches
to strike a pose
and drum?

Or is he hidden,
the handiwork of God –
perfecting orchestration for the score
of his tympanic accelerando crescendo
adumbration of revelation
etched in the expanse
of God’s good
creation?

When I hide
from threat of failure
anxious about my place
in the whirling chaos, do I forget
I too am God’s creature
flushed out of hiding and
invited to be hidden
in Christ?

© 2016 Laurel Archer

If you are unfamiliar with the habits of the Ruffed Grouse have a look at these two links:  Ruffed Grouse video;  Ruffed Grouse Audio. 

Feature image — Pixabay