Waxing moon tilted into a fat smiling mouth
Palest pink veneer on the western sky at sunrise
Coal gray silhouettes of deciduous tree branches against the milky gray end-of-night sky, clumps of old leaves cling still in orblike bunches
Sound of a dog’s paws crunching hard-frosted grass blades
Muted winter sunlight at midday, the frigid air blanketing the sun
Hands buried in cold thin wet grass and mud
Orion guiding a host of giddy, glittery constellations across thick black bedtime heavens
Hawks on power wires – sentries or companions or leaders down the narrow road
Powerfully ice cold “twentysomething” air filling my throat, nearly enveloping my corpus inside-to-outside
New hatch of miniscule milky gray insects thick in a pocket under citrus tree
Looking at, then remembering gratitude for, the tall old ragged conifer in the front yard
Fecund flooded swamp alongside the highway as I walk across the overpass
Desiccated, partly consumed chick on pavement below tree, scooting it into fallen leaves as a respectful “burial”
Blue bird resting on branch, song-talk draws attention
Grapefruit sized oranges fallen in yard in various states of dry, frozen, mush
Amber glistening sap chunked onto fallen bark
Vast open land leads my eye, or my heart, to the cantaloupe sunset ridge: how my own life has such a vaster spaciousness and my inner landscape is broad, interconnected, textured, brilliant
Each one of these lasted but moments; the heady construct of “time” cannot measure – though - the wealth, the richness, holding my awareness. “Time” is irrelevant – however brief or long. It is the quality of the moment that holds value. Over the past week, these tiny measured bits of my day only total to a few minutes. But the significance of their presence, and my willingness to pay attention, paint broad strokes of meaning into my workday. Even my dreams have been impacted: swimming with and stroking dolphins and whales, the raccoon-otter at the edge of my unconscious reverie, the bobbing around in the middle of an ocean, the burnt dreamscape derived from the actual one in the news article I read earlier that day…Somehow these fragments of experience elongate, impervious to matters temporal, adding spaciousness to this life.
It seems that the only sacred act really asked of us is to be aware, to pay attention to all the tiny bits that sew together the larger scraps of our lives. From that simple act of being comes all the rest: compassion, integrity, peace…
(Orig. posted in Jan. 2013.)
