Reality

I cup the morning in my hands -

the sun rising on the back of the rooster’s blare,

the grass growing straight out to the barn

where a black cat explores the known world.

 

I hold the whispery sound of wings overhead

and the silly dither of earthbound hens.

Crow feathers slip through my fingers.

Red leaves, and orange,

green leaves and yellow crowd my fingertips.

Wisps of soft air float free.

 

My hands hold the smells of wood smoke

and damp earth, of dried grasses

and fallen leaves. I bury my nose

and inhale the universe as it turns,

 

loosening summer, setting autumn free,

welcoming winter. All this is here

in my cupped hands, holding one morning,

holding them all.

Pure Pleasure

 

I sit and watch the finches at the feeder thinking first that I am glad I thought to replenish the seed, then notice the sheer beauty of the birds themselves, the soft blush of red on their breasts, the way their feathers make black and brown patterns on their backs, the small perfectness of them, and as I watch, the noticing falls away and I am left with something so much larger than a wee feathered finch, a recognition of what Eckhart Tolle calls “naturally arising moments of pure pleasure.”

 

The sun backlights the yellow leaves on a maple. You can get lost in that light, let it shower down over your shoulders, fill your eyes, wash you with color until you are the yellow leaf and the sunbeam and the very air you breathe.

 

You can nestle your hands deep in the fur of a dog, gaze into its eyes until you fall in, lose all your senses except how your fingers feel, and your palms, until you are the dog and the hands and the otherness and sameness at once. 

 

If you lie on your back in a meadow and stare at the sky you can fly, rising up from yourself and floating down to yourself simultaneously. You become sky and earth until the sheer weighted weightlessness feels like home. 

 

Naturally arising moments of pure pleasure can be sought but I like them best when they descend without warning, when my hands are deep in the hot sudsy dishwater and my mind has wandered away from itself and into a place where soap bubbles are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, or when I’m holding a sleeping child and the weight makes my arms tremble but my mind stills itself like the sleeping babe and we breathe in tandem, sharing waking and sleeping dreams.