Song of the Lotus

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In the silence of the heart
grows the tender white lotus blossom
that is your life.
Water it gently with your tears.
Bathe it in the sunlight of your hopes
and the soft moonlight of your dreams.

Listen! for the trees are sighing,
holding out their arms  as you approach,
hoping you will truly see them
at least one time
before you die,
will let them hold you gently
as you cry.

Behind your sleeping eyes
lies the Watcher In the Woods,
the one who nudges you this way and that,
who sighs wearily, when you do not 
heed her call,
this One who knows you best of all,
who has picked you up after every fall.

As we draw closer to the end of things,
our spirit slows, our voices gentle,
we are not nearly as certain as we once 
so vociferously were.
It is time for softness now,
and reflection,
for looking back and for remembering.

We need much silence now,
a silence of the heart
weary from making its own way.
We speak more softly, and less often,
the young won't listen anyway.
They have to find 
their own befuddled way,
their own steep price 
in pain to pay.

Our song now is a murmuring brook
trickling over some knotted roots;
we are content to meander whimsically
through this golden autumn-before-winter,
letting go like the last withered leaf
on the gnarled old maple,
twirling dreamily down
to the mossy bank,
where we sit for a spell,
lulled by the water's flow.
So soft, its voice, as soft 
as the somnolent song of our lives
the last notes sounding, 
holding death at bay,
before they gently, softly, finally
fade away. 

for Rosemary's wonderful prompt at Poets United's Midweek Motif, which posts tomorrow morning: Let Your Song Be Delicate, based on the poem by John Shaw Neilson.