I Find

This morning, reading online,

I find

Inspiring speeches

intelligence

wisdom

and soaring rhetoric

coming not from some well-known politician

or member of the cultural elite

but from the mother and sister of a man

shot

in the back

by police officers.

More and more now,

this is what I find:

That we lead ourselves

are not led,

are sovereign

able

aligned.

"America, your reality is not real. We will not pretend. We will not be your docile slave. We will not be a footstool to oppression... You must fight, but not with violence and chaos - with self-love... Black men, stand up. Stand up, Black men, and educate yourselves." Letetra Widman, sister of Jacob Blake

"As I have prayed for my son's healing, physically, emotionally and spiritually, I also have been praying, even before this, for the healing of our country... We are the United States. Have we been united? Do you understand what's going to happen when we fall? Because a house that is against each other cannot stand. To all of the police officers, I'm praying for you and your families. To all of the citizens, my Black and brown sisters and brothers, I'm praying for you. I believe that you are an intelligent being just like the rest of us. Everybody, let's use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to work together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other. America is great when we behave greatly." Julia Jackson, mother of Jacob Blake

Strange and ...

 

I saw a scorpion this morning.

 

Improbably, on the pipeline path in the low light of dawn,

I saw a shape that looked like a scorpion and

Wondered and took a stem of grass

Growing there and poked

At the shape and

Watched it move,

Rear up,

Hold that position as a palpably living thing,

As a brave and tested warrior takes up a stance to strike.

 

I breathed.

 

I wondered.

 

I carefully stepped over the threat of something strange and dangerous.

 

I moved on.

 

As Breath

 

I was forced to slow this morning

and was aided in this by the hermit thrush and its

solemn studied song.

 

I was forced to slow by the exigencies of berry picking amid the brambles,

By the tangle of wild clematis and the fierce

Blockade of blackberry

Canes almost an inch thick and deeply, dangerously armed with thorns.

 

I was forced to slow by the steep and treacherous loose rock path up the pipeline. I slowed

For the careful search for black and red raspberries.

 

As a consequence

Of all of this,

I am now

 

Slow

Almost to stillness and

 

Quiet

 

Unto silence.

 

 

May's Emergence

 

I’ve been

intensely focused

on the beauty of the season,

on the gardens, the plants, the soil, leaves, old stems, emerging tenderness

what needs to be done

what can’t wait.

 

In all of this, I have neglected my interior.   (I love

 

the echoes of allusion and

 

I feel

the deep love for me inherent in them.)

 

In neglecting my interior,

I neglected to call forth from within me

 

the higher vibrational being that I am –

 

pure love incarnate,

 

which,

 

even as I sit here saying it,

writing it,

thinking it,

 

comes forth on little cat feet.