@quiet_pages
FIELD
Foxes crossing at the far end in the grey / In the late July heat the combine starts
DIARY
Dated and dog-eared and slightly swollen / Ink that ran when the tea cup was too close
FLAME
Feeding on the air that doubt forgot to close off / Lasting longer than the dark that tried to snuff it out
KIND
Knowing that the stranger needs a hand / In the small things, love most lives
CHAIR
Comfortable in the way of long familiarity / Holds a throw blanket in every season
AHEAD
A destination does not have to be certain to pull you forward / Having a direction is enough when certainty is not available
CORAL
Colours built by creatures no one sees / Opening polyps in the warm night current
SONG
Singing only when the neighbors are away / Old tape playing from somewhere I’d forgotten I had
LONELY
Life compressed to one small silent room / Only your own breathing for company
COMES
Coming toward you even now is what you have not yet imagined / Only what moves can arrive, and arrival changes everything
REAL
Returning again and again to what is actually true is the honest life / Every illusion, while comfortable, eventually requires more energy to maintain
SUN
Stretching gold across the morning field / Up through the leaves it pours its warmth
AWAKE
A life lived only in the habitual is a life only partly being lived / When you wake within the ordinary, the ordinary becomes the sacred
GRACE
Given even when it wasn't earned / Received without the understanding why
TIDE
The long arm of the moon reaches in / In the channel the current picks up pace
LILY
Low in the water the lily pads spread wide / Its flower white above the dark below
RENEW
Returning to your center is a practice, not a destination / Each beginning carries something the last ending could not hold
STONE
Sitting in my hand it holds the river’s story / The grain in it is older than the mountains
WAVE
Welling up from somewhere far offshore / Arriving without warning at the sand
STONE
Sitting in the riverbed for centuries / Telling time in ways we cannot read
ROSE
Reaching past the gate toward the open road / Open even in the days before the rain
MOVED
Meeting something that undoes you / Opening wider than you planned
SHORE
Standing where the solid world lets go / Here you can see how far the sea continues
PEACE
Pulling inward to the wordless center / Each breath becoming simpler and more full
RENEW
Returning to what is essential in you after what is external takes practice / Each morning offers the original version of the self before the day
ANGER
All the love that had no place to go / No one handed you a better way to say it
STORM
Sky turning the color of old iron / Thunder rolling across the open plain
SCENT
Something baked that floats down the hallway / Coat just in from the rain still smells like outside
BLISS
Brightness that arrives without a name / Letting every burden find the floor
SEED
Sleeping through the dark months without complaint / Even without sun it knows what it is for
PURE
Purity is not the absence of the complicated parts of you / Under all the layers is something in you that remains untouched
AIDE
Assisting what is good in someone else is never a small thing / In helping another, you discover what in you is able to be used
SAND
Scattered fine across the winter beach / All the footprints gone from yesterday
BREAD
Baked from a recipe learned from someone gone / Rising on the counter while snow falls outside
LAMP
Late on and the book not yet finished / A small warm radius in the large dark room
ALWAYS
A truth held over time reveals its permanence in the holding / Lasting things do not require proving every time they are questioned
BASE
Beneath the visible achievement is the invisible preparation / A strong position is built long before you need to stand on it
LUNCH
Leftover pasta eaten at the counter / Under the fluorescent office ceiling
CAFE
Cup held in both hands on a cold afternoon / A book open on the table and the world shut out
ANGER
A heat that rises without warning / Nothing holds the fire back
BIKE
Balanced on the curb before the ride / Into the wind with a bag on the back
SONG
Slipping into the room from a neighbor’s open window / One summer compressed into three minutes of melody
PETAL
Pressed between the pages of the old book / Even now it holds the shape of what it was
WARM
Woven through the ordinary hours / Arriving without announcement or fanfare
WALK
Wet shoes and worth it for the air / Around the back of the park where it’s quieter
MAKE
Making something real from nothing is the most human act / A creation carries forward something of the one who made it
WIND
Waking up the lake before we do / In the chimney it tells old stories
SIGH
Settling into what can't change / Into the exhale, everything releases
RAGE
Rising like a flood without a warning / All the patience worn down to the bone
PEACE
Pulling back the curtain on the noise / Every exhale softens something