What Grows Between Us

 What Grows Between Us

 

It is great to have friends
people of the same tribe
a community of like minds
banding together
week after week
enjoying each other’s company

sharing politics
religion
meditation practice
shopping
food
music

while the landscape changes around us—

mosquitoes biting
leaving welts
spiders dancing in the light
weaving their delicate webs
mushrooms capitalizing on damp ground
creating whole villages of their own

and beneath us
what we cannot see
is happening too—

roots reaching
mycelium threading through soil
one tree touching another
water moving
nutrients passing
life giving itself to life

nothing truly alone
nothing entirely separate

the patterns intertwining

forming their own economies
their own communities
their own small worlds

and when I step back
I see the larger picture—

not just a quilt
but a living fabric
where every thread
holds another

where the circle needs the square
the soil needs the rain
the mushroom needs the tree
and the tree, perhaps, needs
what grows unseen beneath it

And maybe this is what we are:

not only great

to have one another

but critical.

Inside the circle,
within the square,
beneath the surface,
we hold each other up.

We are whole.
We are one.

A small group of friends—
and a much larger
living thing.

 

Feasting, Fanfare, and a Very Determined Walk

 Feasting, Fanfare, and a Very Determined Walk

 

Today is the Feast of the Ascension,

and the clock is grinning at five.

A little late for heaven’s early-bird special,

but still squarely in the rooster-approved shift

when prayer slips in like steam from a fresh cup,

bringing mental cobwebs to heel

and kicking stress out like an uninvited cousin.

I am oddly peaceful,

like a parade float before the band starts blasting.

Today’s grand quest: a lap around the lake with friends,

having already evicted a few stubborn gremlins from the attic of my mind.

I am awake,

armored in clothes,

and primed like a toaster at dawn.

The body is on board,

though the appetite has been throwing confetti for days,

so now it is time to let my Keens preach.

 

 

Sweaty Rocks

Conglomerate rocks

glisten in the noon day sun

tripping up hikers

lacking traction, challenging

tree roots; slimy curb appeal.