The Hush

Robert A. Fink Box 15114 Hardin-Simmons University

The Hush “My favorite place to be is a place that I’m most safe.” Beth It is a breathing, the small sounds of a child positioned at the tree toad green table in the corner where robin’s egg walls touch like the fold in the middle of an open picture book. And on the walls the inspiration of shadow trees, leaves inhaling and exhaling, limbs supple as a young mother’s arms, her long fingers caressing . . . the sound of a reed flute beside the brook the child hears and in the hearing, sees. Hush. . . . There is a bird, calling. A small wind, the silhouettes of trees bending to the child like her mother who was lost, but now, having found her daughter, enfolds the child as if she is the mist rising from the bank beside the water clear as kindness

Abilene, TX 79698

moving over the carefully placed pebbles.