It comes softly

 

It does not come with thunder

            It comes with soft rain in the night

                        It is startling only in its calm

                                    It gives no warning, it just arrives, a light breeze that is all

                                                It walks over lily pads, like a cat in the grass

                                                            It curls up in a warm spot on the threshold and waits

                                                                        It does not knock, you find it there when you return,

It lets you in!

                                                                        It moves like sunlight through dust, through all your shadows

 

It moves like a glove polishing whatever it touches

And settles by the fire as if it were a winter’s night

And smiles like hot chocolate

Nothing seems disturbed, as if it had always been there

Some piece of familiar furniture

Yet it isn’t

It changes shape

It sits on the mantle

It lingers over the stove

It becomes childlike and hides under the table

It can walk in the dark and not step in the puddles

Or lose its way

 

Unassuming as air, it breaths life into old wounds

And heals them

It does not speak much

Yet like sleep it gives voice to dreams

And smells like a fresh brewed morning

Each day it proceeds a quietly as the roots of a tree

It grows reaching further and further

Taking hold with the most delicate, invisible fingers

 

I do not seem to mind this

That is its gift

It makes room where there was no room

It takes up no space, it provides it

It does not need a closet

It’s the same old shirt I always wear

Yet it is a new wardrobe of possibilities

In a place I’ve never been

I’m not surprised, I’m grateful

Grateful for the ease with which it comes and goes

But never leaves and never hurries

Grateful for the company

 

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I work undisturbed, building, repairing, improving

It watches, lifting expectations to realizations

Building along side me a daily pattern without walls

I do not question this

I trust its judgement

And its careful, thoughtful attention to detail

There is no rush

There is nowhere to go

This is here now

And it makes the best of it, better

 

 

I cannot be sure how this happens

It is so slight a thing

Who can say what day or hour

We move from one season to another

But we know we have

It is like that

Something altogether natural

I do not even think to qualify it

It does not occur to me to try to understand it

I leave thinking out of it

And that is a relief

I sit in silence

With all the years of misgivings wrapped about me

And seem unworried

 

Or discouraged

As if I’d lost all fear of life

And can finally just get on with living

 

Certain that grief is never distant

Certain that disappointment never vanishes from human effort

And that sorrow and regret may always haunt us

 

But so what!

Love walks over the face of these reflections

And does not even make a ripple

It merely takes a bath.