@starry_ink
PAIN
Passed through, not around, is how it ends / A knowing in the depths that you are still here
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
BREAD
Baked until the kitchen smells like home / Rising slow through the cool morning
GAZE
Giving your full attention is the most generous gift / A look without agenda reveals what looking for something hides
DUSK
Deepening between the trunks of pines / Under this light everything looks softer
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
TRAIN
Tired and not asleep and not quite awake / Rain on the glass and the fields going past
WIND
Without a shape but with so many voices / In the long grass it signs its name in circles
TRUST
The hands you reach toward reach back / Resting in the word that was once given
GIVE
Genuine generosity is the art of giving what it costs you something to give / In the moment of offering freely, you discover what you truly hold
GENTLE
Giving the world a softer edge / Every sharpness set aside for now
MIND
Moving through the world with full attention is its own form of mastery / In the quality of the thinking is the quality of what the thinking builds
TOWN
There are faces here I cannot name but know / Only locals use that particular shortcut
COOK
Clock watched only occasionally / On low and covered and left to do its thing
DAWN
Dreams dissolved by the six o’clock alarm / Already light when I thought it would be dark
AMEND
Acknowledging what was wrong and moving toward correction is strength / Making right what was made wrong is not weakness, it is wholeness
LILY
Long stalks bending over the pond edge / In July the whole surface is white with them
FERN
Folded tight before the warmth arrives / Each frond unrolling like a green letter
LAUGH
Loosening the grip the day had on us / A shaking that is half surprise and whole relief
NUMB
Nothing seems to penetrate the layer / Underneath you know that something lives
ANGER
All the love that had no place to go / No one handed you a better way to say it
MEAL
Made from memory and from what remained / Every ingredient doing more than expected
TIDE
The water knows its time without a clock / In the night it moves the edge of everything
DUSK
Dimming the detail and leaving only outline / Under the last red light the bats appear
SAND
Scattered fine across the winter beach / All the footprints gone from yesterday
OPEN
One step toward what you do not understand is worth more than ten steps toward what you do / Presence without agenda is the most welcome kind a person can offer
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
STORM
Something in the air before the first rain falls / Thunder a mile off and getting closer fast
WALK
Wet pavement reflecting the afternoon sky / Around the block just to get out of the room
DAWN
Dreams dissolved by the six o’clock alarm / Already light when I thought it would be dark
CROSS
Crossing the distance between you and the truth is never free / Reaching the other shore requires leaving the one you stand on
CAFE
Corner table with the best light / A long time spent over one cup
CROSS
Crossing the distance between you and the truth is never free / Reaching the other shore requires leaving the one you stand on
LAMP
Lamp on and everything else made secondary / A habit now to reach for it at dusk
FEAR
Finding yourself at the edge alone / Every instinct says retreat
LAUGH
Letting down the careful face at last / All defenses softening at once
SWEET
Settling into something long awaited / Warm as the voice of someone loved
QUIET
Quelling the internal noise takes practice / Under everything, a waiting stillness
ROOT
Reaching deep before reaching high is the wisdom of trees / Only what is anchored well can afford to grow toward wind
ASCEND
A long way up is still the way if up is where you need to go / Slowly, the one who keeps going passes all who stopped to question
PETAL
Pulled loose by one particular wind / Each one falling in its own slow way
BIKE
Brakes adjusted at last after months of complaining / Into the lane that opened just in time
BLISS
Between one breath and the next, arriving / Loose inside a moment without edge
TEA
The mug still warm when I came back to it / Every cup a minor interruption from everything else
PEAK
Planted in the sky above the treeline / Even the wind here is a different kind
REEF
Riding the surge between the open sea / Every formation built over long silence
DEW
Deep in the night it settled on the rose / Everything it touches it makes briefly new
TREE
This one has been here since before the road / Roots holding the bank above the river
TREE
Tall enough to hold the wind above / Roots reaching deeper than the drought