@river_song
MIST
Muffling the chapel bell in the valley / Imagining the hedgerow through the white
HONOR
Holding to what you know is right when no one sees is the real test / One life lived with full integrity is worth more than many lives performed
FROST
Finding every surface before dawn / Rimming the red berries with cold light
FOND
Far across the years a warmth persists / Of someone who is gone but still close
LEARN
Letting every experience pass through you rather than get stuck inside you / Every encounter, even difficult ones, carries a lesson if received with openness
DUSK
Dimming the detail and leaving only outline / Under the last red light the bats appear
ROAD
Rain turning everything to grey and silver / Overhead the sky deciding something
WEEP
What the body keeps the tears release / Even stones, they say, have cried before
CLOCK
Constantly noticed when you wish it wouldn’t be / Louder than it should be in the quiet
NIGHT
Now the house belongs only to its own sounds / Into the stillness that collects after everyone sleeps
LEARN
Letting go of what you thought was right is how you grow / Every lesson costs you something you thought you needed more
CHILD
Collecting things that only they understand the value of / Happiness expressed at full volume without apology
OCEAN
Once a sailor and now this far from water / Currents moving in the same circles still
PAIN
Pressing past the threshold of the bearable / All the body speaks at once
CREEK
Cold and narrow between the mossy banks / Rounding the boulders in small white confusion
GLEE
Going sideways into unexpected joy / Loose inside the moment without thinking
GLEN
Gathered mist at the bottom before sunrise / Larches turning gold at the first cold snap
CHEER
Come and find the one who almost gave up / Here is what belonging sounds like
GRACE
Going lightly through the world / Releasing what no longer serves
BLISS
Beyond the surface pleasure is a joy that does not depend on circumstance / Living from a place of peace within makes all conditions workable
COOK
Calm when the kitchen has a plan / One stir too many but it still works
CORE
Come back to what is fundamental when the rest falls into noise / Only the essential holds when everything peripheral falls away
COOK
Chopping onions and crying productively / One mistake turned into the best thing in the pot
SONG
Something playing in the next apartment faintly / On the edge of recognition but not quite
GLEN
Gathering the cold air into itself at night / Low mist moving in the early morning
ELATE
Electricity inside a quiet afternoon / Light arriving faster than you track
DAWN
Dew on the windowsill before breakfast / A soft light crosses the kitchen floor
TREE
Tall before our grandparents walked this road / Roots further down than the oldest well
SLEEP
Somewhere between awake and nowhere / Last thought always the most random
DANCE
Difficulty met with movement finds a rhythm anyway / Accepting that control is partial is the first step to grace
FIELD
Far from any wall it grows toward itself / Insects threading between the tall grass stems
SIGH
Somewhere between surrender and release / In the sigh, the body finds its floor
CHILD
Crayon held like a tool of great importance / Homework done under protest and then pride
DREAM
Disappeared as soon as the eyes opened / Running through a place that kept changing shape
HOME
Hinge that sounds the same as it always has / On the mat the day’s shoes in a pile
WARM
With you, the cold becomes a thing remembered / A fire that needs no wood, just your presence
PATH
Pebbles loose where the path turns right / A gate left open that was always shut before
JOY
Just beneath the surface, always ready / Opening to it is the hardest part
PAIN
Passing through the burning toward the clearing / A message from the place that needs your care
LAUGH
Leaping past the careful and the guarded / A sound that cracks the quiet open
GUILT
Going over what was said and wishing not / Under every laugh a quiet reckoning
FEAR
Forward still, despite the shaking legs / Even forward movement feeds the courage
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
MERCY
More than justice asks us to give / Every giving-up of the right to punish
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
ALOFT
A thing carried upward does not forget where it began / Lifting your vision past the immediate is a learned and needed skill
STILL
Sitting with what is difficult without running from it takes practice / Tending the inner quiet is the most productive thing you can do
MOON
Moving the ocean without touching it / Over the frozen field it casts no warmth
HONOR
Holding to what you know is right when no one sees is the real test / One life lived with full integrity is worth more than many lives performed
SCENT
Something baked that floats down the hallway / Coat just in from the rain still smells like outside