I have said throughout this ordeal, repeatedly, “Come with me, if you can, as far as you can.” It was a plea for help and company. And from those who’ve come along, I’ve learned that touch is the clearest way to know another’s experience. To walk through the surf makes us part of the ocean. To watch it swell and recede makes us just a shiftless though sympathetic dune. I am well because people didn’t watch my suffering, but entered it; through which they felt love-sufferings of their own; which, at times, hurt them too much; which, in turn, forced me to nurture them; until, in bare, essential ways on certain days, we weren’t sure who was ill and who was well. A solution that saved us all.

Soft as Satisfaction

SOFT AS SATISFACTION

We often pray God will let us have truth.

It is more important to pray God will help us live with it.

ROBERT PENN WARREN

I was so solid when our lives were crumbling.

Why am I powder when you and the days

are sturdy as gold?

I am fading into ordinary ways: mere scratch

of belly, long itch of eyes.

I knew all through it, if all else failed,

my compassion for the Whole like an atom of

nectar would fight off death and bring us

back, for a while.

But now, the days seem unmagnified

without emergency. Why can’t I be brave

when mere silence is at stake?

I have been fighting the passage

into normal life the way a salmon,

hooked and set free, tires

and starts to slip downstream.

Names and praise no longer feed.

But more, what scares

is the lack of hunger.

Letting Go

LETTING GO

After feeling driven my whole life

something very near the center has

unwound and I can no longer hurry

through airports or return all my calls.

And sometimes people I barely know

swim up like old worn fish to show me

the map of their gills, and the one long

gash of something they once swallowed,

and how it has cut each breath since.

And I am honored to warm them

like a blanket. But when alone, I

find it hard not to watch

what I swallow.

When alone, these things

I’ve wanted to know since birth

feel so unanswerable, I must

have been torn from them.

I’m sure a hawk doesn’t know it’s a

hawk. I’m sure a spirit doesn’t know

it’s being spiritual. Or a screen door

slapping, like a tired life, in the night,

if it’s opening or closing.

Though we give up the murky fears,

we still can’t know our worth, anymore

than a faceless treasure

can fathom why

it was boxed

or buried

or saved.

Inside the Miracle

INSIDE THE MIRACLE

Great knowledge sees all in one.
Small knowledge breaks down into the many.

CHUANG TZU