On Hornby Island

I am standing by a steep moss slope
where water flows down in streams
from the lips of ancient stones,
so clear it appears as if the very rock spills.
There is no word in my language to tell
the sound of water falling like this.

It is a perpetual sparkle-splashing,
a bright variable-pitch water music
I wish you could hear
I wish you could understand
by it how much I am silenced,
by it how much I am changed.

By a high mossy slope

where water music spills from lips of stone,

I stand silent and transfigured.

Beverly Harris is the author of short stories collected in Three Times Five (NeWest Press). A former editor of Dandelion Magazine, she now lives in Victoria, BC.