Some look at the world beyond the skin and
see just a world. Others look at it and see in
it storm clouds and rain, suspicious and hostile
movements bound to harm--sooner or later.
And there are those who see nothing at all of
the world but who see only pictures from the
mind: Each thing seen is covered up with the
darkness of the past, with vain remembrances
of lost and dying dreams and tortured hopes of
future happenings too nebulous and ill-defined
to ease the restless moment.
When I look at the world I see countless miracles
of endless, changing color and shape, of movement
and stillness. I see the dignity of life ignored.
A lone tree with no leaves stands naked and bold
in the Autumn wind against the pensive gray of rolling,
sunlit clouds. A small chipmunk running through a
shadowed stream making tiny splashing sounds, then
stopping at the edge of leaning gra** and looking around
at giant trees and all things great; fully immersed in the
nature of its endless moving world.
An old, rusted car hidden in the brush, an odd
mix of thing and life, of metal and gra**, of life
reclaimed by nature's children, an easy home
for life's small, restless wanderers. A once well-
traveled path now hidden by weeds and traversed
only by comic squirrels darting back and forth
across its width, playing some game known only
to the beauty of small, unfettered minds.
Two lovers barely seen amidst the curtained
branches of an old Willow tree. Wrapped in
each other's love and seeing nothing else, they
hear powerful quiet sounds and melodies heated
by the movements of embrace. Eyes closed, the
touch is felt more deeply and more broadly than
the outward hand can reach. The kiss is laced
with the sweetness of surprised feelings suddenly
unleashed in the spiraling colors of innocent
discovery.
An old man and woman holding hands on the front
porch. Years and years of love, made quiet in the
security of it's power. The old plaid shirt and the
purple shawl slightly touching while they sway gently
back and forth on the hanging swing. A soft, barely
audible tune escapes her lips; perhaps a favorite
melody of days gone by when first they met. Their
beauty is complete, their unity unshakable, their love
woven carefully, like fine silk spun from the loom of
patient living and caring, of shared tears and nights of
laughter round the fire while snow flakes fell on bending
trees.
There was a time when my eyes were shut tight and
my ears were deaf to the beauty of life, with only clues
and hints of something real. Confused was I, like a
great city highway of winding, twisting thoughts going
nowhere. And one day I beheld a blue bird singing
from a window sill. I listened as he sang some unplanned
melody. So full of life was his song that I too began
to sing. And I sang, and sang without rhyme or reason--
without one care. And in the midst of that song all lesser
things vanished. And their was calm. And there was
peace. I found my voice. For I too am a song of life as
all else is.
When we can listen to the song that is singing us, we
can hear the music of the entire world. We can hear
reality without the echoes from the past. We can
see reality without the ruse of old and battered
imaginings. Then we can enter the beauty of life as
one who enters his own home. And we can rest
in it, and feel safe in it. And it will heal us and make
us whole...