poetry

 With owls, heron, and crickets as our guides, Directions to Beauty leads us on an interior and exterior journey that track together—through the oaks, moss, vines, and pine of Northwest Florida, through midlife, grief, discouragement, and hope—what Deborah Potter calls the ecosystem of her life. Tracing her steps through a winding path of poetry, image, and prose, we watch as she stumbles onto a spiritual practice, arranging the most humble artifacts—weeds, seeds, fungi, and lichen—into altars. When a world of beatific wonder opens up we are no longer witnesses to the author’s transformation, but full participants. The briny bayou swallows us whole with new grit, a cricket orchestra burrows like a southern oak in our ears, and blooming moss molds us into softness. Finally, we catch a glimpse—a small shimmer between pine straw and the underside of a poem where Beauty has nestled in for the day. For travel-worn pilgrims of landscape and soul, for those who mourn a culture dried up with utility, for grievers, empty-nesters, middle-agers, for those fatigued with faith as a business, Directions to Beauty might offer just that—hope that Beauty still exists in the world and a map for how to find her.

It keeps calling 

at the nape of my neck 

through my southern window

a descending quiet

outlasting even triteness

I thought I’d wait until I could frame it as original

but when would that be?

This call came from the time of crickets

itchy forts

dirty feet

family order

For a while 

back then

I thought I needed an answer

It tugged at me like a severed umbilical

a restless deprivation

Needing a fix I tried many things,

though fewer than some, 

both wholesome and desperate

people

profession

pretentiousness

achievement

In any case, the hook was in

I swallowed the line and swam straight toward

practicality 

growth

self-actualization 

belonging

I found love and beauty

but that was not my doing

I was lucky 

Their sharp resilience punctured through the lists strung out

the ones connecting the dots of every day

will

grit

perseverance

security

But the call had stopped

On top, the itchy azalea fort was a pretty flower

Dirty feet got painted too

Family re-ordered

Restlessness finally wore itself out

The string of to-dos knotted so tight

The whole, the cord itself 

was not tied off, but worse

It wasn’t there

Wonder dulled, you know? 

I nearly forgot 

that I had once recalled 

that Something was never, ever known 

and never would be

And now this global tragedy has brought it back to me

that comfort of being delightfully small

So many lungs are struggling now that to-do lists are scattered and lost 

among more important matters

matters with urgency, not deadlines

the matter of life

I found a Screech Owl in the giant Sweet Gum behind my house 

and visited her every day

I’m tending my garden and learning different birdsongs

Naming trees I never realized were growing in my own yard

How had I missed them?

There’s a fragrant tenderness in this attention 

I’ve realized not only flowers look beautiful in vases

Whole branches, green and wild, deserve display 

And I feel guilty because 

through my bedroom window comes a breath

a long, deep, insatiable call

a return, wrought with longing

saturated with restlessness

a pleasant thrill

Funny, I hear it better now. 

From the beginning

the itchy, restless, dirty-footed beginning

The answer was the call itself

The longing was its own satisfaction

I cannot remember my to-do list for today 

I know it will catch me, this lack of trying

pushing

striving

this subverting

this grace

But I don’t care

The wind is blowing against the nape of my neck from my southern window 

and the ache of it is so delightful

I remember

I remember now that I forgot 

that Something can never, ever be known 

 Years ago, when we first moved into our house, first joined the congregation of this land, there was a wrought iron Heron hanging between the second story windows on the front, like a nose between far set eyes. We took it down to cut off the curly cues around the frame that had been someone else’s art, thinking we would put him right back up. We never did. At first we didn't have the torch needed to cut out the parts we didn't want. Then, we didn’t have a way to lift him, to set him on his rightful perch flat against the wood of our house, staring south, saying, “The salty sea is where you live.” The Heron, like so much else, got lost among the sleep-walking tasks of life.

So, for years, our house has had staring eyes, no nose. The Heron lived with us, but like me, was buried under yesterday and tomorrow. Traveling week after week after week for a decade, desperately missing my family and my home, doing work that filled my head and not my heart left me circling high above the Earth in repetitive loops, like a vulture landing only to eat. Even with a loving family and stable home, I felt ungrounded, distant from the land and myself. I felt abstract, more an idea than a body. This is what the Barred Owl punctured when he came, the abstract of me that couldn’t land anywhere. When he did, when sickness and death and night vision arrived, I sputtered and tumbled like a deflated balloon, suddenly aware of gravity, the way my fleshly body stuck to the Earth, relieved to see I had hands and feet, but still too uncomfortable to use them. 

The thing is, I didn’t land somewhere random. We never do. I landed where I live—on the shore, in that liminal space between land and sea, where all is negotiation between wet and dry, where all is wind and wave and surf and bird. Where all is cloud and depth. Where everything is salty breath and recycled rain. Where everything tastes like tears. With new vision and new feet, I felt pulled toward the Earth, like the great nose of me finally said, “I matter too. It’s all about where you point, my friend. It’s all about the direction you intend to face, it’s about turning your attention to what you sense deep down and then waiting, waiting for it to break the surface.”

When I was a young adult I lived far away from this place. For long periods of time I would forget, aloft as I was, dried and blown to far places. When I got close, though, memory always found me in scent, in the way our bodies reach for the land who first mothered us. I inhaled these fishy depths, felt myself neither land nor water, but something both, something in between. 

That scent, that swampy life, is the tone and the feel and the process of this Heron time—a time of scanning the horizon for something I sense but cannot see, a time of looking deeper out there and in here. Like the Heron, I was pointing my nose toward the depths and watching, watching closely for what would feed this new life. Intention is the way we find the salty sea. It’s in the water of us that we finally catch our dinner. It’s in the nose of us, the scent and sense of us, that we finally point our way home. The Heron turned his head confidently south. I followed him, nose by nose.  

 What if we created a movement of stillness

like others before

like the elders who knew the real world 

without the weedy spread of communication

What words would we use to spread silence?

Imagine what new resignations 

would happen

upon the viral quiet of

St Francis’ latest recruits 

a new community of tenderness toward all life

A virus held us captive inside our houses for a time

and look what happened

an awakening about the value of living 

at least for some

Imagine silence spread the same way 

with the same passion we apply 

to planting gardens of barren words 

reaping harvests of starving souls

Imagine if most 

or at least more 

sat cross-legged beneath the Oak

the Maple

the Sweet Gum

the Cottonwood careening down its summer snow

upon the crowns of heads 

we cannot see

anointed

for just a day

in observation of everything 

but ourselves  

There is a way 

for the world to turn back to the beauty of itself 

to its perfect creating 

The trees have never led us astray

only begged us to return

to this original sanctuary 

No budgets required 

No buildings

No yoga pants 

No campaigns for growth 

You don’t even have to have a plan 

a tradition 

a name

Bring your mug of coffee

herbal tea

your glass of water

your thermos of soup

Sit outside 

Settle yourself into the best seat in the house  

The theater of life is playing

The holy drama is on stage 

every minute 

every day 

The only ticket you require 

is attendance 

Your only role 

the quiet dance of attending

 This morning with cardinals singing

with fog lifting

unveiling a new blue sky

with the scent of grapefruit flowers dried

and lain across my table

with graves to dig

and prayers to lift

with wet soil to plant

our grief like seeds

I renew my vows

to the purpose of life

which is Beauty

the lonely heron gaze

the great barred's call

the cricket’s song

and the fall 

of leaves

of flowers

of words

with the salty tears of this life

whether loss or birth

Beauty drips 

like a single taste of 

honeysuckle

pulled slowly

sacredly 

from days