The Wind Knows
I come to a secret place
Quiet water - gentle
Crickets
and birds
Splotchy green light
and the wind.
The wind, coming in waves like the sea
through the leaves -
Showing their silver undersides
Shiny, against the clear autumn sky.
I struggle to quiet. I am like a twitching, nervous creature
But the wind gets louder, almost drowning out the crickets and the birds.
Telling me that it is time.
Time to let go.
Time to quiet….and rest.
That the world is not mine to hold or control or even help.
Sure, I want to make a difference
of course I want to help.
But weariness and woundedness are speaking loudly.
Loudly like the wind.
Stop, child.
Stop.
But it feels like death, like dying.
The pain of letting go is confusing.
Not clear pain, like a cut running deep and red.
But pain that moves around and sometimes can’t even be found.
And the soil of my soul is all up-turned.
Revealing
Truth-telling.
So painfully true.
So the wind invites me to hold that dirt in my open hands
beside the quiet waters
with the crickets and birds watching
And let go.
*****
I struggle to see the whole picture of the letting-go
Like a leaf who won’t let go for the awful-glorious falling and floating and burying and dying.
Because it can’t see the path.
And it doesn’t want to leave the furious pace where the sun shines on its upturned face.
It doesn’t want to fly and float and bury and die.
Because…
What’s next?
The wind waves at me with mighty sea-arms.
What, Wind?
What is next after I disappear?
***
And the wind-chorus roars and whispers, but it doesn’t have an answer.
and really….I know what I don’t want to know.
That I become soil for new growth.
That’s what comes next.
And maybe (maybe?) the soil will be rich, for feeding mighty roots.
The truth of it makes me want to lay in the stream and float away on thoughtless waters.
The truth is, wind, I don’t know how to do this.
I do not know.
The strength of letting go is strength beyond me.
I’m a holder. I hold on.
It’s what I do.
So, wind, you must move me and shake me an make me let go.
I am not strong enough to release and flutter and fall and still stay alive.
Because - wind, please tell me -
who will catch me? The water? The soil? The Maker of all?
What will give me meaning in the dark, cold earth?
I dreamed of flying, not dying.
But the wind tells me - there is a season to fly.
And a season to die.
It is pointless to hold on in the season of letting go.
It isn’t how things are meant to be.
And the leaves on the water quietly smile back as they rest on their journey.
They don’t know either.
But the wind knows.
- smf -
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