ten lights of letting go






Tell me why the spirits
play in the skin of the dead leaves,
clacking as they twirl themselves
into the baby sky.

The wind is an old man,
a voiceless bellow
speaking in the movement of all things.

The poem is the journey of the eye
speaking to the heart.
How hunger stirs the hand
to lift like leaves and write.

I have begun to believe
that nothing ever really dies.

We change our clothes. We break our wings.
We fall, we sleep.
The seasons lay down over us
while we listen to our mother

who's breathing
reminds us of everything.

She is the sunrise, the moon's face,
the language of stones, the scent of rain on the earth
coming.

She is the plain sparrow who loves me. The eagle.
The constant warmth of the bear in the den.

Put away your tears for the lost things.
If you can call them back to you,

or open your ten lights of letting go
to hold the next good thing.