Finding the Words

Questions quicken,

replies ripple,

laughter lurches,

words spatter on the surface;

while below

meanings flutter and form –

sometimes creating

brief and indistinct patterns,

that then vanish

the way they came;

other times becoming

clearer as they reach the edge

of awareness,

or jumping into mind

fully formed.

Finding the words

for the things that are hidden

is not an effort of mind

or a concentration of craft.

It relies on opening the

channels from the depths

to where the place of words waits.

The time between

a stirring and a shifting

in the depths

and an image or a sentence

able to be formulated

and shared on the surface,

is anything between

the opening of an instant

and the gradual unfurling

of a lifetime.

Leaving Abisko, May 2017

I am crying because you are so beautiful.
Expanse of snow-paint shapes in white.
Sun glitters on ice-crystals,
hot on my face.
Beautiful birches bravely stand in coldness,
each with your own green circle of thaw.
You tell me the roots are warming:
deep down the moisture trickles and renews.
Soon the buds will swell, the leaves unfold,
each tiny leaflet opening greenly to the sun.
But I will not be here to see.

I am crying because you are so beautiful.
Water rushes between high-tiered rocks
and cascades down canyons.
Ice sculptures stretch into whirling pools,
dark water churns with leaping foam.
Soon the ice will melt, the river rushing faster to the lake,
there will be flowers on your banks.
But I will not be here to see.

I am crying because you are so beautiful.
Vast frozen lake, immensity of white.
Curved patterns of grey-black in mid-freeze.
Infinite variations of white and grey lead the eye
to the next line of mountains, and above them
to the white of sky. A single goose
flies calling, calling..
Soon the cracks will start to appear, the sun
will drop down golden fingers and the water
will begin to move.
But I will not be here to see.

I am crying because you are so beautiful.
Mountains rise: line upon line.
Dark lines of trees, unbroken white above.
Raven flies croaking, stops to direct my gaze
to further beauty.
Soon the snow will be gone, apart from at the very tops.
The reindeer will roam higher.
The paths will be open, I could walk again
to the never-cut-down forest
without disappearing into snow drift.
But I will not be here.

I will be far away;
four days of train ride away, south and west;
in another country, in another summer.

I am crying because I am leaving you
again, today, after such a short time.
I am crying because you are one
of the most beautiful places in the world
and I am full of wonder to have seen you;
to have been here for this time, with you.

I am crying because there are so many beautiful places
in the world: many that I will never see, many that will not survive,
many that are ‘heart-places’ to me.
So many places that I love:
so many places that I leave, again and again.

And I am crying because there are so many beautiful people:
people who are my ‘heart-people’, people who I am honoured
to share life with, people who I love.
People who I leave, again and again.

And I know that leaving is a part of the richness:
as is arriving, as is being in energetic space
with loved ones, again and again.
And I know that our lives are infinite with variety:
with merging, and separating, and being together,
and holding separation over distance.
And I know I will be back (the trees tell me so)
and that next time it will be summer
and the trees will be rich with vibrant leaves
(but which summer, which leaves?).
And I know that my tears are both of joy and sadness
and that it is impossible to know
which tear is which, as it is impossible to know
whose root is whose, or where one of us begins
and the other ends.

And I let the tears fall.
And I touch your bark gently.
And I wish your roots well.

The Gifts of Doubt

I give you trust.
I am red and yellow, bright and strong,
clear-cut colours,
making clear-cut patterns that I know that I can see.
I plan, I make things happen, I trust all will be well.

I am the side you cannot see.
I give you uncertainty.
I give you the sifting and the shifting,
the things that come from the dark.
I give you the things we do not know, without which
we cannot be surprised,
without which there would be no gifts;
all would be laid out, the path seen all the way to the end.

And so it is I who make space for the ecstasy, I who give you the times
when magic springs to life, when you open your heart
until love pours in like a river,
when you hear yourself speaking without knowing what you will say
until you have said it.
It is I who makes space for the gifts you could never imagine.

Hold onto the trust. But hold it like a thread,
(a golden thread that shines in the shadows)
not like a light-bulb that dispels the dark,
not like a vice that grips
too tightly for dancing.
Enter my maze of mystery, enter my swirling mists.
See my rainbows dancing, hear my ecstatic music.
Find the gifts in the darkness.
Follow the beckoning fingers
of the hand you cannot see.
Hold the thread as you descend, let the two hands dance.
Be in the moment even as you plan the future.

I cannot promise you numbers and balances,
I cannot promise you all will be well.
But I can promise you that the moment (the timeless, eternal moment)
will be more amazing
than you can possibly imagine.