She leans into the smooth
bark of a red maple,
steam rising from her cup
while boots suck at her
legs from the water
to her calves.
She breathes easily, almost sleepily;
she is home, after all.
The woodland pond stretches
out before her; one week reborn,
Spring new.
Oak leaves carpeting its floor
are juicy again after the long
dry winter that tries
to continue but grudgingly
gives way to red maple
blossoms floating
on new water.
The water is clear though steeped–
the living caressing the dead. Late
afternoon sun slants into amber.
A pair of wood ducks
emerge, flying from their cavity
in a pond-side hickory.
She watches, sips, is here,
where past and future are
the sure cycle of life; generations
of salamanders and fairy shrimp;
maple replacing hickory replacing oak.
She need not spin the cycle.
She is here with her coffee,
Awake and turning,
turning.
Builder:
An Educational Magazine for Congregational Leaders,
is published by Mennonite Publishing House and Faith & Life Press. Information
available at www.mph.org.
Return to September Bulletin
contents
About this Issue – A Goshen College book club?
In Praise of Faculty
Salsa: A Taste of Hispanic Culture
Night's Black Weight
Berman's Lament
Anansi Borrows Money
Sexuality: God's Gift
Roll It: GC Alums strike success in soap box racing and
celluloid
Return to Goshen
College home page
In
addition to classroom teaching, Associate Professor of Biology Mary Linton teaches
Creative Writing and the Natural World with Associate Professor of English Todd
Davis, bridging science and literature – naturally. She finds plenty of
material to inspire her writing while at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center,
which named her as its Alton Lindsey Teaching Fellow. “Coffee break”
was first published in the March 1999 issue of Builder magazine. Mary
wrote an accompanying article titled “Transformation and the salamander
life cycle” which included descriptions of her work studying the Midwest’s
salamanders at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center.
Coffee
Break