Friends who I have left behind, friends I’ve not yet come to know,
these drops of rain upon the hill come likewise to the valley,
to beat against your doors, streak your windowpanes,
set aglow your lighted lamps.
Return now to your visionary dream, song of your heart’s voice.
Return now to your body, at once solid and transparent.
Return now to the music in every prism at the end of every string
held loosely by the fingers of every wide-eyed child.
These are not the days of old maps and heavy leather-bound tomes,
gold fabric of late afternoon unsheathed, only to be slid back into a scabbard of mist,
clearing the way for a midnight sky of shattered crystal and baby’s breath.
These are days of cold mumbling rivers that know secrets,
cabins in the mountains, their wood beams rotting too slowly for us to see.
While walking in the morning I digest this vastness, this solitude,
this gravity that presses against the muscles around the eyes.
Friends, I toss myself aside for you. I become available for you.
I eat, drink, run hands through hair for you,
scramble up the gully for you,
carry wood, fold socks, scrub pots, ever-fearless, requiring nothing.
These are days of time’s inhalation
pulling way up under the world’s collarbones,
stitching together the fibers of memory and intention.
These are days of emptying the mind, distilling the essence.
What does it matter if the world hears your voice?
We all belong to each other. Your voice is here, mine is here,
as great, small, and equal in worth as any other.
The voice is in your heart and so the world’s heart knows it,
as surely as you know the heart of the world.
The line is cast before the coming of a great fish,
a sudden tug is felt through our hands
and our withered husks give rise to something new.
Steady now.
