Pause

there will come a moment
a pause
when your bones will remember
what it’s like to be embraced
by the night sky
and in that moment
your heart will whisper
“flight”
and your hand will reach
for the key
that takes you back
to silence
and peace
and stillness
and the cold night air
on your face

there will come a moment
a pause
when your bones will remember
what it’s like to be weary
in the body
and in that moment
your heart will whisper
“listen”
and you’ll hear the bamboo weeping
not from sorrow
but from the ecstasy
of resurrection
being born
raised up
cut down
raised up again

there will come a moment
a pause
when your bones will remember
what it’s like to be awed
by the sight of creation
and in that moment
your heart will whisper
“hope”
and you’ll feel the fluttering
of a cardinal’s wing
in your breast
the home of the heart
and the lungs
moving in tandem
to bring you back
to a moment of pause

Waiting No More

The foremost topic of conversation with anyone these days is how sick they are of winter and where the hell is Spring? If red buds, Japanese magnolias, dogwoods and forsythias don't bloom soon, I swear people are going to start rubbing gravel in their hair and rending their garments.

Yes, we are all weary of enduring the gray, frigid, snowy, wet, foggy days that have dominated the winter landscape in Middle Tennessee.

After a morning stroll around the retreat center, I have good news. The lilac bushes are budding out, as is the flowering quince. Sedum, iris, day lilies, chives and yes, wild onions are sending up green shoots of new life through brown grass and decaying leaves. The goldfinches are dusting off their dull feathers.

Spring truly is coming. It may take longer than we'd like, but it will come. I wonder, once it's arrived, will those who've bemoaned its absence partake of its glory? Will they look up from their Iphone or Blackberry long enough to notice? Maybe between errands and appointments they'll stop long enough to take a deep breath of warm, loamy Spring air?

Is all the complaining more about a society who wants what it wants NOW and can no longer savor the tingly joy of anticipation; the gift of waiting for seasons to unfold?

As for me, I'm going to bundle up, walk into the World and let my eyes and ears find Spring.

Care to join me?

Untethered in the World

What do I want to do with my time?

 to walk untethered in the world  to wander without a compass only to find my way home at the end of the day  to carry only that which feeds me wholly  to embrace silence until the language of the land becomes my own  to pause when the bones say rest under the outstretched arms of a forest green  to honor the hoof prints of the doe with words rippling down a blank page

and

 to say, “Here, take these words and know the freedom of honoring the yearning of your soul.”

This Native Land

Do strains of music stop at the border's edge?

What of the wind
of the rain
of the sun

and its healing rays
shining down
on the Mother,
this native land?

A nomad's foot pauses
on the cartographer' s line
between nations.

Does the soil
feel foreign to the heel
but home to the toe,

or does he walk on,
one horizon
one world outstretched?

These imaginary borders
we bump into
on our way to somewhere else

cut us off from each other,
the fractured allegiance
to flags of different colors.

There is peace,
there is plenty,
there is the single strand

our tribal nature weaves,
unravels,
reweaves again

to the rhythm
of the native drums
the calling out

the calling home
to brothers and sisters
of the Mother,

this native land.