Did we not see?
Why are we so anxious?
Have we no room to breathe?
Do we not know that seasons rule the flowering of each seed?
Have we not seen how every tender, leafy shoot
Sprouts only when supported by a bed of nourished roots?
Were we not told how every single tiny blade of grass
Surrenders to the rains and winds and that come to pass?
Did we not marvel as hatchlings chipped their eggs when good and ready?
Did we not then weep for worms who helped those chicks grow strong and steady?
Did we not observe as, tentatively, they took flight,
While garden cats awaited them below, as though by right?
Did we pour blame upon the bird that flew too soon,
And fell to its own fate, watched only by the silent moon?
Did we deride the blade of grass that was squashed mercilessly down
By feet that trampled on it?
Did the blade cry or sulk or frown?
Did we applaud, then, the daisy that bloomed brightly toward the sun,
While others dropped their petals, their days now all but done?
Did we consider one of these events superior to the other?
Did we rejoice at perceived success, while perceived death made us shudder?
Do we even see at all, as life unfolds quietly,
While we dance and spiral in the ballroom of anxiety?
Can we not admire and observe our very selves
Like leaves and shoots and dandelions -
Alive by some mysterious spell?
Created by an energy that we leave unacknowledged…
We weigh down our minds as though theirs, only, is the knowledge…
We ignore our wise bodies as they sees us through our day…
We forget that our hearts are here; our spirits long to play….
Are we too afraid to face that which we truly are -
Just a single grain of pollen, just one of countless stars?
Are we fated to be stuck in worry about what’s yet to come,
And steeped in sorrow over what has passed; what’s said and done?
I do not have the answers, but take solace in the wondering
For it reminds me that I’m one speck in a world alive and thundering,
One dot of sand within a universe electric and pulsating,
Part of a life so beautiful, I cannot keep it waiting.
I must, I must breathe into the life force that brought me here,
That keeps my heart beating, and smiles at all my fear.
I must, I must believe in the goodness of this force,
Which is the goodness of my own inner self, of course.
I must go on now, back to life – these words are just a fraction
Of the energy that flows through me with every living action.
And as I go through this glorious gift I call a ‘day’,
I’ll think of blades of grass when I slip and lose my way;
I’ll think of chicks who barely knew of life outside their shell,
I’ll think of living thankfully,
Which is, truly, living well.
