Tag: change

  • Change

    I just found this short poem I wrote a long time ago during a time of upheaval in my life. My circumstances are different now and it is an ‘autumn’ poem, not a spring one. But it may be no coincidence that I have come across it again at this point in my life, so here it is:

    I stand by the brook and listen
    To the rush of water under the bridge

    I step into the darkness
    Beyond the streetlamp’s reach

    And hear the restless sighing
    Of wind in the tired leaves

    My dog’s familiar shape
    Moves in the disquieting night

    I feel the cleansing bite
    Of autumn on my cheeks

    My pace quickens against
    The chill of season’s change

    And I welcome it with an anxious heart
    Heralding the challenge of the new

    25/09/1990

  • This Flower Alone by Lyla June Johnson

    This flower alone,
    which at once
    is beauty
    is rooted in beauty
    and whose petals
    reach out to beauty

    This flower alone,
    whose quiet song is drowned
    by the blasts and by
    the evening news
    of the modern world

    (but is heard
    by the lucky few
    who bend to listen)

    This flower alone,
    and the ambrosia
    it plants in every cell
    of my being

    This flower standing here alone,
    living proof of wonder;
    living proof of hope;
    living proof of beauty;
    living proof that God’s love for humanity
    has not lost its devotion.

    This flower alone,
    who sits patiently like
    a prophecy waiting
    to be known

    This flower alone,
    like a messenger in the dark of night
    telling me
    that everything
    is going to be
    alright

    This flower alone,
    is enough to change my life forever.

    The glittering distractions of the information age vanish
    and there is only me, the lover,
    and you, the wonder.

    And if the only beauty alive in the world was this flower
    and if all the rest was chaos,
    this flower alone,
    would still instruct me by sensation
    that I am held in the arms
    of something greater.

    And if my whole life was colored by darkness and destruction
    to one day be so blessed as to just behold this flower,
    that alone
    would be worth
    my birth
    and my dying.

    This flower alone

    has
    in a moment
    deprogrammed my mind

    to eat faith and not fear
    to wait on joy and not sorrow
    to expect communion and not solitude
    to face the fires of the world with this unwavering knowing
    of beauty and all the fruit it brings.

    This flower alone,
    in its unassuming tenderness and grace
    has in a moment
    incinerated my grief
    like sweetgrass in the flames
    and left behind only the
    scent of what is real.

    These eyes can see
    finally
    the beautiful song sung
    all around.

    And if I could rest
    in this place
    for just a moment
    I would remember who you are
    and who I am
    and where we are
    and how it is supposed to be
    for everyone.

    See more of Lyla’s writings at http://www.sodizin.net