It isn’t long after we arrive

that everyone starts pointing

and telling us where we need

to be and what we need to do

to get there. There’s no time

to really ask why. Soon, things

happen and we’re thrown off

course and now there’s all this

effort to win their approval. If

lucky, love will distract us more

than suffering. If blessed, we’re

broken of everyone’s plans and

regrets and thrown like a hooded

bird into a sea of light. If trust-

ing the fall, we find our wings.

~Mark Nepo

settle into the ground with your feet, with your attention, with your calm……

inquiry for today~  what if for today, everything was just fine? really fine?

how are you?

There was the moment
you could bear it no more.
Your eyes brimming with
great glistening drops
summoned by the hunger of
the world, the callous and
terrible things men and
women do to one another.

Your tears splashed onto
cold stony earth, ringing out
like bells calling monks to prayer,
like the river breaking open to
the wide expanse of sea.

From that salt-soaked ground
a fruit tree sprouts and rises.
I imagine pendulous pears,
tears transmuted to sweetness.

There will always be more grief
than we can bear.
There will always be ripe fruitflesh
making your fingers sticky from the juice.

Life is tidal, rising and receding,
its long loneliness, its lush loveliness,
no need to wish for low tide when
the banks are breaking.

The woman in labor straddles the doorway
screaming out your name.
You stand there on the threshold, weeping,

and pear trees still burst into blossom,
their branches hang so heavy, low,
you don’t even have to reach.

~Christine Valters Paintner