On January 30th, I wrote these opening lines to a blog post:

…For the first time, sinking as deeply into awareness as possible, I headed into the safe harbor of stillness in the middle of an emotional storm… 

Since then, the storm has morphed into the sometimes calm, sometimes rather tumultuous ups and downs I call my days and nights. The stillness is slowly, patiently becoming a habit that I turn toward, an instinctive place I have attempted to describe in the following poem:

COMMUNION

 There is a bowl.

Stories gather within its unsounded depths

even as the bowl fits in the curve of your palm

 tales once pebble-sized now grown into stones

the sly ones that enter without your knowing.

There is a bowl.

 It is filled with the water of compassion.

This is the same bowl.

It brims over crying

when the stories jostle against one another.

In its brimming the bowl asks only this—

Make room.

Make space between the words where

consequence and compassion may sit in communion.

Everything rests on the holding of the bowl.

_________________________

Red Bowl:

Much appreciation to Britt Faulkner for sharing her painting.

www.withbritt.com/art