@silver_pen
ATTEND
Attention is the rarest and most significant gift one person gives / To be truly listened to is to feel that you exist more fully
SOUL
Standing in full awareness of what you are is a kind of prayer / Out beyond the personality, the soul still knows exactly what it needs
LUNCH
Light through the kitchen window at just the right angle / Under the hour but fully inside it nonetheless
GRACE
Giving more than is required / Resting easy in forgiveness
RAGE
Running past the point where calm was possible / A wall of heat across the chest and throat
SPARK
Sometimes the smallest thing is all it takes to start the fire / Possibility lives in the space between the wish and the attempt
TOWN
The bakery that stays the same decade after decade / Old posters still up from months ago
APART
All that separates is also pointing to what could connect / Perspective grows in proportion to the distance that you can accept
TREE
Tall enough to hold the wind above / Roots reaching deeper than the drought
CREEK
Cutting between the cottonwoods in July / Rocks glazed green and gold beneath the flow
MIST
Muffling the chapel bell in the valley / Imagining the hedgerow through the white
FAITH
Finding footing in the fog / Ascending past what reason sees
LAKE
Lying flat between the hills like rest / A calm that holds the sky and keeps it still
DEW
Drawn to the coldest surface in the dark / Every hollow holds a little more of it
REAL
Reaching past the performed self finds what actually is / Everything genuine costs more than everything pretended
SNOW
Softening the world into unfamiliar shapes / Newly white and silent as held breath
GIVE
Giving without expectation is the purest form of having / In the act of offering, you find there is more within you
SONG
Stuck in the head since the morning commute / Only the tune not the title or the words
INNER
Into the interior of the self goes the one who wants to know the source / Nothing in the outer world has the answer to the question the inner world asks
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
SHINE
Staying bright inside a world that dims you down takes discipline / Having your own source of light means you do not depend on conditions
DEW
Deep in the night it settled on the rose / Everything it touches it makes briefly new
SAND
Scattered by the gale into our eyes / All the castles gone before the tide
STILL
Sitting with the unanswered question without demanding it answer is strength / This is the practice: return to the quiet whenever the noise begins to win
CALM
Choosing the slow breath over the quick reaction is learned greatness / A center that holds under pressure is built long before the pressure
SIGH
Settling into what can't change / Into the exhale, everything releases
SAFE
Softly landing in a trusted place / All the vigilance put gently down
TREE
Turning toward the light before it understands / Reaching further than the winter said it could
SHORE
Sand pulled between returning and leaving / Here the water forgets to be water
SONG
Soft melody surfacing from somewhere old / Only the chorus comes back clearly
FEAR
Freezing at the edge of the unknown / Every shadow seems to breathe
SWEET
Sometimes kindness tastes of something good / What lingers after love has touched the room
DAWN
Darkness always ends because it is not the final word / A new beginning does not ask permission of the former night
BASE
Beneath the visible achievement is the invisible preparation / A strong position is built long before you need to stand on it
COOK
Comfortable when nothing else is making sense / One more thing added because it was there
ALTER
A single decision made from the deepest part of you changes everything / Leaving a prior version of yourself behind is always bittersweet
VIVID
Very present in the ringing now / Inside the moment, color everywhere
VIVID
Very much awake to every color / Inside the living moment, everything is sharp
BIKE
Bell rung once just for the habit of it / Into the park where the path bends left
NUMB
Nothing quite arrives the way it should / Unable to locate the place to feel
TASTE
Tea gone cold beside the keyboard / A slice of toast at the wrong hour
BREAD
Bought warm from the market on Saturday / Rising overnight in the old tin
CLOUD
Climbing slowly above the summer fields / Long shadows moving on the open ground
PINE
Planted long ago now taller than the house / Its roots the depth of everything we know
DAWN
Damp and cold before the colour comes / A silence between the last owl and the first lark
SONG
Singing only when the neighbors are away / Old tape playing from somewhere I’d forgotten I had
WISH
Without the wishing, the wanting has no direction and the effort has no star / In the space between the longing and the reaching, the wish lives and waits
DIARY
Dog-eared pages from returning too often / Ink faded on the important days
DREAM
Drifting through rooms I have never been in / Rooms that felt important in no traceable way
SELF
Something in you watches everything that happens to you / Every version of yourself contains the one before it