A Return to the Sacred
I woke up today and felt the same
as I did yesterday,
and the day before that, too.
For a sliver of a moment,
a fraction of a second,
like the sun flashing brightly
blinding me of any view,
I forgot everything.
I didn't think of the panic.
I wasn't focused on the uncertainty -
all of the unpleasant images
our minds conceive
when faced with the unknown.
When staring down darkness.
I didn't look for reasons to worry.
I wasn't trying to remember the last
piece of news I read.
I didn't think of the wrinkles on
my grandmother's forehead,
deepening,
weakening
as the chaos grows louder.
I wasn't setting my eyes
on the possibility of infection
going viral
among myself,
my family,
my friends.
Instead,
in that brief space
between sleeping and waking,
I opened my eyes
and saw beauty.
I saw love.
The sun's rays,
trickling in,
my plants simply sitting
basking
in the light.
Birds outside,
awakening,
nestling,
singing,
all because
they can.
All because
they want to.
The quiet,
the breeze,
the soft sensation
of Spring dawning.
I remember now
what it was like
being a kid,
not yet having ears
more attuned to the
loudness.
Not yet having eyes
grown older
seeking the negative.
Not yet having a heart
waiting for its next ache.
I sat up in bed,
and with the slow
steady,
creep
of the world's reminders
settling in,
I chose to remember
the girl
from many years past
who when blinded from
all crises
still arose,
still awakened,
still chose to see the good,
the enchantment,
the possibility of magic,
as though
that's the only way she knows
how to be.
As though that's the only way
she should live.
You see,
we are being reminded
of our youth.
We are being sent back
to the stillness.
We, our beings,
are being asked
to be.
Nothing more,
simply the return
to our former ways of being
when the world
wasn't all about
the destination
the perpetual force forward
but the unimaginable
indescribable
beauty
that is ever present
when we allow ourselves
to sit
in the present.
Sit
in
the
present.
Allow yourself to be.
For when all of this has passed,
when the wave normalcy
returns,
you may find yourself,
wishing for this
silence,
for the quiet hush,
the patient cooing,
the lovely stillness,
of a world not spinning
on its axis
for work, movement, travel
constant motion,
forever doing,
rather,
for once in your life,
you are being offered,
encouraged,
forced
to simply be.
That is all, my dear.
Simply be.
