@golden_leaf
DAWN
Dreams dissolved by the six o’clock alarm / Already light when I thought it would be dark
BREAD
Baked until the kitchen smells like home / Rising slow through the cool morning
ADORE
All the light collects around that face / Deep inside the ordinary day you shine
FIELD
Far from any wall it grows toward itself / Insects threading between the tall grass stems
APART
All that separates is also pointing to what could connect / Perspective grows in proportion to the distance that you can accept
NIGHT
Now the street outside is finally empty / In the stillness everything feels briefly possible
MARSH
Mist hanging low above the reed beds / All the wildfowl settling for the night
APART
A distance between two things creates the space for understanding / Pulling back is sometimes how you see the shape of what you love
SAND
Sliding between the fingers into nothing / An hourglass and a beach are the same word
GUILT
Going back to every choice undone / Under every smile a quiet ache
QUIET
Questions settle when the noise retreats / Under every restless thought, a floor
BEYOND
Beyond the edge of what you know begins the actual growth / Each time you pass what you believed was your limit, you are larger
YEARN
You keep a place inside for what is gone / Every reaching forward leaves it open
OCEAN
Opening before the ship without an end / Carrying its storms from one coast to the next
TRUE
The path that is most yours does not always look like the path that is most followed / Reaching for the version of yourself that has no audience and no performance
LAUGH
Leaping past the careful and the guarded / A sound that cracks the quiet open
CROSS
Crossing the distance between you and the truth is never free / Reaching the other shore requires leaving the one you stand on
TIDE
The water knows its time without a clock / In the night it moves the edge of everything
CHEER
Come and find the one who almost gave up / Here is what belonging sounds like
JUBILEE
Just this once the weight lifts off / Under every sky a cause for thanks
ALIVE
A life fully inhabited feels different than one only partially entered / Learning to be here without wishing to be elsewhere is the deepest discipline
APART
A distance between two things creates the space for understanding / Pulling back is sometimes how you see the shape of what you love
TRAIN
Tired and not asleep and not quite awake / Rain on the glass and the fields going past
TOWN
The clock tower still working and still wrong by two minutes / Old shopfront that has held three businesses in ten years
PETAL
Pink and falling from the cherry in the wind / Even the garden path is beautiful today
CHILD
Crayon held like a tool of great importance / Homework done under protest and then pride
REEF
Rising from the deep to meet the keel / Even in clear water hard to see until too late
GLEE
Grinning wide at nothing in particular / Leaping through the ordinary day
LAUGH
Loose and sudden, no apology / A gift the body gives without a reason
HOPE
Hard to name exactly what it is that keeps you reaching / Of all the things you carry, hope is not the heaviest
ACTS
Acting in the world is how the inner life becomes visible / Carried out fully, even the small act contains the whole person
MARSH
Making its own rules about land and water / All of it alive with hidden things
LONELY
Life compressed to one small silent room / Only your own breathing for company
PATH
Pavement still damp from the morning / A trail worn by the same shoes every day
FAITH
Finding something solid when the visible gives out / A trust extended past the edge of what you know
FATE
Following the thread that seems to choose you back is a kind of trust / A life of pure design misses the gift of what arrives uninvited and needed
TIDE
Turning back before it reaches the wall / Into the bay the cold water slides
DAWN
Dogs barking somewhere beyond the fence / A neighbor’s car warming up outside
BOLD
Bringing yourself fully forward even when the welcome is uncertain / Out in the open with what you actually think is where trust is built
PHOTO
Propped against the lamp without a frame / Holding the light differently than I remember
PEAK
Planted in the sky above the treeline / Even the wind here is a different kind
BEGIN
Before the doing is the choosing to believe you can / Every great thing started as an act of just beginning
STORM
Slow to come and faster going than expected / The morning after brighter than usual
WALK
Wet shoes and worth it for the air / Around the back of the park where it’s quieter
RIVER
Rushing through the canyon without resting / Into the flatland slowing and spreading out
ANGER
All the love that had no place to go / No one handed you a better way to say it
DAWN
Dew on the windowsill before breakfast / A soft light crosses the kitchen floor
HOPE
Holding a candle in the corridor / Offering light before it is requested
FIELD
Filling now with the slow gold of July / Into the barley the wind writes its long name
FALL
Falling is not failure if the falling is what teaches you / All the most important landings followed from a willingness to fall