Between Here and There

 

This poem is a bridge between here and there,

between trouble and peace. I write to

find my way to what lies beneath:

the bigger story in which my small

human journey is contained.

I didn't mean to carry so much:

the heavy lift of helping others

carry their own burdens;
the weight of a world in freefall:
people at war with each other,
at war with the planet itself.
One grows old

before we learn to travel light.

My head wakes every morning

to, first, the weather, what kind of day

it is, indoors or walking weather.

Then the news rushes in, the horrors

that happened overnight while 

I was sleeping; the insane antics 

of people wanting to govern the world

who are unable to govern themselves.

My poems are an effort to sweep the path,

make a clear space in my thoughts, the better to

breathe in the peace of Mother Ocean,

walk in the greenly Sister Forest, eyes

following the flight of birds above,

in the clear air - the most fortunate of beings,

who do not know of war, who are content

with simply Being.

My teachers: waves, the wild ones, trees.

A simplicity that brings me to my knees.

A Wild Writing poem sparked by Mark Nepo's unpublished poem "At Gate 3, in August." The italicized lines are his.