Settling In

​

Three weeks now

Since working.

The mundane world

Goes its way.

I seek mine.

 

A long time coming,

This return from the wars

Of daily commerce,

Taking off the harness,

Slipping away

Quietly.

 

Retirement?

Not so much.

A rebirth rather,

An opening door,

A gift of possibility,

Of staying alive,

Coming alive.

 

Old habits hold.

What to do?

What to do?

The day’s busy,

Time slips past,

Restless mind,

Restless body.

 

There’s the flow

Yet to be found,

A dance of doing

And being,

The grace of passion,

Walking inner paths,

Finding the pace.

 

Today shopping,

Cleaning, clearing

The old into new.

Rich and full

Yet restless still,

Driven.

 

How do I honor the alter

Of the spirits

Who’ve come to guide me,

Protect and hold me?

How do I honor my teachers,

My ancestors,

My family?

 

For the ancestors are calling.

The moon wanes.

Though magnolias bloom again,

And a sudden spring shower

Makes children laugh,

How many days?

 

Lying sleepless at night,

Wondering, worrying,

Comes a feeling,

A mystery of being,

Wordless, a space beyond,

Where the heart opens

To all and everything,

Where each day blesses

The trees and mountains,

Where rivers run full

And the mind is clear.

 

There is no truth in words,

No presence.

But beyond the fields of right and wrong,

Lie the ends of the earth,

Where monsters be.

And when we’re taken by grace

And fall off that edge,

Surrendering,

Submitting,

Allowing ourselves to be held,

We’ll bow in the six directions,

And out of us will spring the mighty tree

Of our own true nature.

 

A lone flute plays,

Seeking what never can be found.

The night is still,

We are held.

 

Someday soon

It will be we

Who do the holding,

Who will find what the flute seeks.

For we will be the song and the sky,

And there will be no more mysteries,

For the mystery will be us.

We will be the ones

Who turn the wheel.

 

And then, at last,

We’ll settle in.