This time of year I venture into zerodark o’clock to check for first lambs.  The first day of lambing is a lottery even though we know that the ram was put in with the flock on a date certain and that the gestation period for lambs is 5 months minus five days.  You would think we could almost mark when first bleats would be heard. But no.  So I commence the morning routine for lamb-time: wake up and listen for bleats, get up, put on warm clothes, boots, flashlight and out the back door. This poem is part of the mindful background racket that I tamed into the poem below. The sensorium storm of lambing, the firmament with Venus in full bloom, and the anticipated return of the greater blue herons–and I wonder, I doubt. Will this triumvirate rule once more? Yes, even though I always doubt, it always does. The secret sits in the middle and knows.

Wake Up. Witness. You Are the Secret that Knows

Observe.Sing.
Observe.Feel.Move.
Observe. Move pen.
Feel, feel, feel.
All the senses
echo round
and in the middle
this secret sits, singing,
“We are called upon
to witness the world,
to see, move, taste, smell, breathe, share, and sing.”

Wake up!
Wake up!
Open your eyes
and see what
the morningstar
has revealed,
then listen
to
the faintest feathered stir
of herons
returning to their nests
high up along the creek.
Wake Up, Witness. You are the secret that knows.
You know.