Against White Pines

July nightfall
hints of dying embers
witness the edge of summer

There is no need to wait on death or to give oneself over to the pain of this world. The fireflies said this to me at this late stage of the game. Rise and fall, light and dark – the deepest way exists only in this very moment.

A makeshift lunch by the river can last a lifetime. Decades of chronic pain can fade into the briefest of moments. Everything is impermanent. If one holds that truth up high into the sun or even sets it way down into loamy remains of the finished garden, they might find the open gate of peace.

We live to know joy. We die to begin again and find joy anew.

I am reminded of this most acutely when I water seeds or press my cheek against the white pine. How deeply the entirety of the cosmos knows these truths and yet, how quickly we overlook.

*

I've changed the way I walk and the way I touch. I still do the dishes and laundry. I still park my car in the suburban garage and put my garbage out at the end of the driveway on Friday mornings. My body still aches, gets sick, experiences pleasure and shares words and feelings with others.

But now when I close my eyes on the forms of this life, I am carried by the river which feeds itself.

I float instead of swim.

Turtles keep the depths. Eagles keep the sky.

I am neither here nor there.