Beauty is the way

The way is fraught,
but beauty is the way.

We are like the clouds I see,
morning sun coming through

We are also the mountains
strong and ancient,
a becoming that is also a letting go.

We are sky, too — vast, infinite,
so much to explore and know.

Cloud and mountain differentiate
light pouring through the —
what are they called? — ridges?
I want to say crevasse.

How can we give up hope in the face
of so much beauty?
Our mother is powerful and we have
rebelled like misunderstood teenagers,
full of desire and truth and longing.

Still, in this world, this morning exists.
Still now, here in this troubled time,
my eyes are squinting as morning sunlight
pours over a mountainside.
Still.

When I am awake in this way, I think:
what if everyone could feel like I do now,
trusting the day to open,
taking the sacred offering.

The Earth speaks a complex and terrible
language, vast in its implication

Understanding begins in the gentling of ourselves,
in soft whispers felt in the
vast intimacies of our own hearts.

Truth felt and then a breath,
big and full and sighing,
the body’s grateful participation
in a beloved communion.