Peace In the River

I recently attended the Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship Workshop with Michigan State University's Outreach and Engagement Office. It was a week-long in-person intensive workshop, the name lived up to its expectation. we covered every angle of university and community work, all parts of the spectrum.

I felt at home around the people present.

Tuesday afternoon, at the end of the second day, we visited the Bengal Wildlife Center. It was a pinnacle experience for the week.

Looking over the marshland from the deck, shaded by the deck roof, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude for the moment, I had found peace. I wanted to capture the moment in time, to return again as I so please.

Tree fluff floating

white cotton fly

distant sun shining,

and clouds gently drift on by

Birds in the tree-tops call out their songs,

A willow fly-catcher calls "A-choo! A-choo!"

The mourning doves sing nearby,

"Who CALLS for-you? Who CALLS for-you?"

The wind flows freely,

The trees hush slow

-----> HUSH ----->

Rosebud & Jessica share their work,

such gentle and humble souls

From their indigenous rivers flow.....

Time to rest,

Time to grow,

Together we ask,

Together we laugh,

Together we cry,

Reshaping our fruitful relations,

ever

changing.

Here is my scholarly identity. I am free in this space to grow. I am safe to lean into the mess that is my lived truth. It's liberating to find a group of scholars working with similar passions.