Trespassing Over Death

I remember swimming over the boulders at the bottom of the lake, their outlines made clear by the sun's unrelenting ferocity. A certain terror pushed my heart and limbs to flail. Though entombed twenty feet below, surely I was trespassing over my own death. If I can't see what is at the bottom, what is there to fear? My front crawl stroke needs work.

Lately when I sit to write, there is nothing. Reading makes more sense and so a return to tea leaves and open-mouthed scripture.

In the distance afforded, the journey from home to home makes a lot more sense now.

Unconditional love, what we are, without choice, walking in the meadow, free, abundant and clear-eyed. The texture of the moment complicates nothing.

Tonight is autumn-cold. And to know October is to know thyself, so in this way it is strange to catch her smiling in July.

The shiver under my blankets reminds that expectation instills suffering. Plans may serve the flow of life better if drawn as rough sketches, lending to the radical openness of what has never left.

Suddenly, the dog shifts; mice play Plinko in the wall behind my headboard; the leaky tub faucet keeps the cadence of insanity; and in a few heavy blinks, all of it yields to impermanence.

Only awareness reifies.

If allowed, this buoyancy keeps one at the surface, floating face up into the boundless salvation of peace.

Free from sunken boulders.
Free from black trees long dead at the bottom of the lake.
Free from the fifty pound tiger muskie waiting to nibble on deliciously tempting legs.