Is my kitchen window a glimpse into the other side?
At dawn a rare red fox appeared on the path below
to lead me into dark conifers at the far edge.
Now it's the red-tinted chest of a hawk
sitting still as a Buddha,
soaking up divine rays
on a branch almost arm range,
like cat Tony behind me
fast asleep in a patch of sun,
both in contact with the source.
I watch an oak leaf float by
still red, yellow and green,
drifting to its final rest,
waving its colors
as it accepts a career in mulch
to build its new arbor home.
Nature is powerful
but doesn't demand dominance.
Her cycle is simple and complex
dancing from life to death to life.
In the beauty along my driveway
I sense a penetrating oneness,
immersed in a cosmic divine,
closer than dolphins to their ocean
and flowers to their roots.
We are unfolding earth
now and forever.
In blessed instants I see a peaceable kingdom,
all seekers eating and drinking from the source,
and under it, a quiet convergence.
In silent unity, spirit moves in and out,
and draws me smiling into the stream of now.
With Brother Francis I see the divine
in every molecule of the cosmos –
sun, moon, stars, even in dust
returning to dust as sacred,
in death as destiny within our temporal run.
Now the reflection of a barred owl
skims the water, moaning
like a wounded herald
announcing my own return apace,
ashes to waves in the ocean of beginnings.
Here on another Ash Wednesday,
I feel cat Max purring on my lap,
see first hyacinths blooming,
and sense the world's renewal.
Take heart, my friends –
brothers, sisters, strangers, beloved –
our common resting place
is in good hands.
- Stanzas selected from “The Hum of it All – Poems from a Personal Journey.” Poems include “Red Hawk Teaches Meditation,” “Oak Leaves and a Puzzled Deer,” “Bringing Earth to Heaven,” “An Inward Olympics,” “The Oconee is Agitated,” and “Death as Destiny not Defeat.”
