And what have I seen?
What seems long ago, my heart, not my eyes, softened the
earth with my tears. The eyes knew only the slings of arrows in vengeance cast
towards the hawk. The hawk soaring effortlessly free upon the thermals with no
resistance had left my hands, like the thermals, holding the tiny red squirrel’s
body. Death offering no resistance or the tear softened grave I dug.
I have since watched the lightness of the coyote’s trot
carrying a Canadian goose in his mouth, his drought gaunt haunches and ribs
soon to know the brevity of fullness. I bowed and gave thanks. I have gathered
the cat and hawk’s calling card of dove feathers piled and dancing with the
breeze, and buried them with corn meal. I knelt and offered thanks to the sky.
With corn meal and blessings I have laid within the earth
the form of tiny finches that could not fly into the trees’ reflection in the
window that gifts me sight of their feeding. I have wished safe journeys to
both the coyotes on the hill top and the bunnies playing below. I have bellowed
with laughter to see a fish struggling….on the end of a tiny little boy’s stick
fishing pole as his squeal of joy and his dance echoed upon the lake of fish. I have stood face to face with a wall of stone
reaching straight up into the clouds, no slants, no easement, here and no further
the wall of stone mountain declared. And I have bowed to the trees bent out and
then upward from its stone closed doorway.
And what have I learned?
A tiny red squirrel now has wings and soars upon the
thermals seeing trees that look like specks of dust beneath his flight. A goose
now runs, leaps, howls and has a den to call home, a place to rest. A dove no
longer timid and cooing now screeches its strength to all below, soaring and diving
and has learned to purr, stretch and chase the shadows and wind. Finches now
fly wherever they wish, even window panes have cracks that bid them enter and
their invisible undenied reflections are seen in dancing grass and swaying
trees. Bunnies and coyotes laugh to play hide and seek and some bunnies no
longer hide beneath the earth to rest but lay in the grass, warmed by the sun,
fearing no thing. A fish has learned to dance, read and write, dreams of flying
to the moon, and knows the gaze, touch and kiss of love. A stoned mountain’s
closed door has softened eyes that reach down and carry you both within and
upon its top as it whispers….”here and beyond.”
And what do I see?
I have a form that gifts pleasure to those who like to count
and put pieces of paper into neat orderly piles. I have a form that gives order
to ques...some go this way others go that way, this door that door. I have a
form that has been given a name much like the names of coyote, Canadian Goose,
Sharp Shinned Hawk, or Red Squirrel. But
does not the coyote feel the migratory call as it lays in his den or the
vibration of wings that would take flight? Does not the hawk giggle to see nuts
on the ground and its claws flex as if to hide them in the clouds. Or does the
goose look to the mountains and hills feel its webbed feet immersed beneath the
water stretch as if they were running across the mesa? Or the dove hearing the
screech knows no fear, the claws and descent are her own?
I have a form that chafes and burdens me at times, weighted
heavy like the boulder Sisyphus slaves to roll up the hill only to see it roll
back down. I have a form and eyes that have been graced to see…I am a
form of forms. No one separate from the others. And unlike Sisyphus I do not
have to push the stone up the hill. I can sit and feel its warmth, our warmth The Warmth…for I AM the stone. The stone
is me. And we are where we are meant to be. In
One. The ALL of One that Is. Formless forms of Light, Being and Love.
