Time and I
Time is my constant companion
I walk hand in hand with time,
Sometimes.
Other times I dance with it,
Keeping up with its intricate steps.
Time sleeps with me at night,
Warming me in its healing embrace.
It is my friend
When I keep pace with it.
It wants my companionship.
If I neglect it,
It gets ahead of me,
Leaving me behind,
Confused and anxious.
Sometimes I run ahead of it,
Leaving it behind.
I do “cloud somersaults”,
Playing with visions of my desires.
But time always catches up with me,
Reminding me of where I stand,
Helping me to build a ladder
To make my dreams a reality.
It guides me if I listen,
Telling me when to be patient,
When to act.
It alerts me to opportunity,
Saying, “NOW”, Act now!
Now is your chance!
Its provenance is vast.
Its law is inescapable,
A hard taskmaster,
And yet a trustworthy friend.
As with all friends,
My relationship with it
Needs to be renewed
Over, and over, and over.
And then time and I
Can become as one,
In each present moment,
In each new “now”.
To Cut or Not to Cut
Cutting means cultivating
Cutting makes the wild civilized.
The mower goes round the field.
The grass is tamed.
My eyebrows grow shaggy
As I grow old.
I trim them. Why?
So as not to appear
Like an old witch,
[Although I may be one.]
Nature trims the branches
In the woods
To her own liking,
Not to ours,
So we cut down the
Widow-makers.
We trim the
Bush’s whiskers
Where the tick
Sits waiting
To make a path
For our own ease.
We cut the spent pansies
In the garden,
Foiling there seed making,
So they’ll try again,
And yet again,
For our pleasure.
But how much to cut?
To tame, but not to kill,
To guide, but not to stifle.
A little wildness
Burns in every heart.
Let us not cut
The song, the dance!
Let us not confine
The wild
To extinction
But let the flame
Glow,
Let the seeds sow.
Give Nature place to Be,
While with discretion
Maybe even with tenderness,
We cut,
We cultivate.
Meditation
Time stops
When one is silent.
A vibrant
Inner unknowing
Informs me
Of a world unseen,
By earthly eyes,
Unheard by earthly ears.
A world unknowable
Enters in,
Dissolves the flimsy walls
Of earthly thinking,
Opens to life
In its enormity.
I surrender
Earthly smallness
To the unknown.
Life in its enormity
Embraces me.
