Image: Melanie Kyer
Grounded
I like to bathe in words
To delight in plucking the perfect phrase
Like a piece of fruit just ripe and not too much.
But even if I used a thousand words,
Some feelings can’t be written, only sensed.
The sounds of lapping waves with now and then a loon
The dance of butter, milk, potato and fish that makes a chowder words can’t recreate
The flutter of green dragonflies across the rippling water.
You know a place like this,
Maybe a lake. Maybe not.
Just somewhere you can feel and need no words.
The paradox of being:
Grounded in humanity with senses full of earthly creation—
And yet, so close to God
I soak in this and keep it for those days
When news comes in to rend and shred my peace
When God and meaning seem so far away,
I close my eyes and let words disappear…
To feel renewed serenity of space.
-Melanie Kyer August, 2026