Hoping to See a Vision at Saut d’Eau Waterfalls

Our words–a few casting clouds–
Shadows drifting over a vast landscape–
Of trees, rocks, valleys, and fields
Others spoke but their silence between
Phrases left an echo of a soundless vowel
That occurs at the beginning of a word
Before the breath forces the first syllable
While behind us a man with a white cane
Marked with red single-stepped his way
Through the crowd to see beyond here
And now of what no one else could

Tim Gavin is an Episcopal priest, serving as the head chaplain at The Episcopal Academy, located in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. He oversees the school’s volunteer service cooperative and its partnership program with St. Marc’s School in the Central Plateau of Haiti, which he visits three to four times a year. His poems have appeared in many journals and most recently in The Anglican Theological Review, About Place Journal, Chiron Review, Digital Papercut, Evening Street Review, Screech Owl Review, HEArt On-Line Journal, The Lake, Poetry Quarterly, decomP magazinE ,and Blue Heron Review. He lives with his wife and sons in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.