A Desire Revisited.

(from a line by Jane Hirschfield)


I've been here
    on this sanctified mountain
a time or two before.

In this very room, in fact,
    perhaps this very chair.

I have wept here,
    before many of the same people gathered together
in this holy space.

Prayed for courage
    and forgiveness
for simplicity
    and strength.

Asked myself, "What will I do
    with this one precious life?"

It has been two years and I realize
    how blessed I am
to be here again.

In the spring this time
    rather than the
middle of winter.

I can be quiet enough
    to listen
    to hear.

They all call to me
    the candy apple ladybug
climbing new stalks of grass
    the beetle that lands

on my chest
    the pair of doves
playing tag in mid-air
    then resting together
in the tree branches.

An unseen hawk calls to me
    as I rise from my chair in the sun
"Begin again the story of your life."