SACRED GLIMMERS

 

Between bombs falling and wildfires burning,
grain not getting to market and people hungering,
midst floods and storms and distressing shootings,
as we catapult ourselves into a fiery future,
lie the moments of our lives: the sweet slow waking,
on a West Coast summer morning, to blue sky,
the memory of standing, late last night, star-gazing,
the waves calling me forth with their forever siren song.
The tiniest wildflowers poking from rocky cliffs
are whispering: sometimes you have to just hold on.

There is an apple orchard in my heart,
incongruously, as I live beside the sea.
My childhood resides there, underneath
the blossoms, full of dreams
that did not include all I have come to see,
or how this long, surprising journey
fashioned me.

It is the sacred glimmers that have drawn me forth:
sunrises, sunsets and the glimmering sea,
forests of ancient cedar, dusk and dawn,
the way each early morning smiles "trek on!"

These sacred glimmers are still shining here
as we hobnob our hectic way along,
still flying, driving, consuming desperately,
humming our frantic, existential song,
an earthly species that does not understand
that we belong.

I am nearing the end of the journey
at the end of the road
with gratitude for every shining
glimmer life bestowed.
I would like my casket woven of seagrass
so that I can all the more quickly pass
into the welcoming, mothering,
nurturing earth, the better to have
a swift transition,
and a swift rebirth.

for Brendan at earthweal: Sacred Glimmers