Moments of Peace

third year priya desai 

photo by atithi patel

1 

Morning by Lake Herrick, 

on a bench I consider my own
(ignoring the hundreds of girls 

who may have sat there before me), surrounded

by trees and the pillars of light that pass through them--

this is, I think, holiness

as Mary Oliver once told me

2 

On the edge of a cliff, with

two of my best friends,

laughing because we think

(no, we know)

we are twenty and invincible, even if

we can’t hear ourselves over the wind

3 

In front of a waterfall,

covered in mist, glistening with sweat, and

reminded of all of the things

larger and more permanent

than my feelings, than myself, of all the things that

will live on long beyond me

(not a depressing truth but rather just the fact of the matter)

like silhouettes set in stone,

the redwood trees,

this lake, polluted and manmade,

teeming with life

and always beautiful