a poem: Every land is the holy land.

Every Land

by Ursula Le Guin

 

     The holy land is everywhere. —Black Elk

 

Watch where the branches of the willows bend

See where the waters of the rivers tend

Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand

Every land is the holy land.

 

Here was the battle to the bitter end

Here's where the enemy killed the friend

Blood on the rock, tears on the sand

Every land is the holy land.

 

Willow by the water bending in the wind

Bent till it's broken and it cannot stand

Listen to the word the messengers send

Life from the living rock, death in the sand

Every land is the holy land.

 

-- from Finding My Elegy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)