Bridger

The dearest sound I know
is the light rhythm of my son, now 10, as he breathes.
I linger here beside his sleeping shape
knowing all too soon that he will outgrow
quiet moments like this one.

This moment contains so many others within it-
The countless nights rocking him to sleep,
through fevers or nightmares.

The very first swish of a heartbeat on a monitor, how his father and I sobbed such deep gasps of relief.

I cannot keep the sorrow of the world away from you,
But I promise you that somehow, the pain can be a doorway
to something sacred beyond words.

It connects us to all things.

The tenuousness of a life on this planet, the intensity of parental love. The finality of the passing of time.

How precious, how painful, how good it is
to be.

Wellspring

I have fortified my spirit 

with stones

In order to withstand the sorrow of being 

alive, sensitive, and aware.

But each rock was placed carefully as a cairn

on the ruins of my dreams.

An homage to their beauty and the color they added to the world.

They are with me;

like friends left behind on distant continents. 

And I have doggedly resisted the panicked voice inside, advising

 to build it up into a levy

so as to keep the world’s pain apart from mine.

Such an act would sever the human sacrament 

of bearing witness.

Instead it has become an aquafer, 

whose bedrock is steady even as 

the groundwater of my grief permeates everything.

When other sources run dry,

this deepest well sustains the resilient ground 

of generosity.

A riffle is springing up 

across the center of my being.

It is a space that everything must pass through.

There is refuge here;

wild things may shelter here

for a time;

and breathe.

And when I am still, I hear the rough waters

singing.

Homeostasis

We are held together by the smallest things,

The osteoblasts and myocytes,
keratin and collagen.

Nothing that is alive can grow
until it splits apart;
nor mend without a multitude
of unseen actions that come together exactly 

 right.

The intricate synergy of our own self-organizing;
The cellular orchestration of its own volition.

As long as we breathe, we evelope,

 reincarnate, and repair.  We flow with the

endlessness of order and chaos.

The healed places are knit together most

tightly, and yet they are a liability. Less

yielding, unforgetful.

Bodies are as dynamic as lives.

To rebuild is not simple nor guaranteed. It is 

fraught
with errors easy and incalculable. 

The process lasts as long as we are willing

 to continue it, or
as long as the microscopic labor 

can be sustained.

It is by those unseen cellular deeds 

that we are made alive each day. And by their grace, 

we heal.

In the forest

 In the forest I am a child.

There in the moss, I laid the weight of everyone’s tears.

Breathing in the sweet tilthy floor,

its spongey small tentacles and sharp snaps,

I was enveloped in her playful goodness.

Amidst the song sparrow and red-legged frog,

the world is still and alive.

There, the large world of my young life is smaller, but also wide.

There are no monsters to stare down. No children to save.

No one to rescue but me.

Like an elder, she surrounded me with her quiet power and granted me a stoic sanctuary.

In the forest I did not need to be brave, or strong, or good.

In the forest I am a child.