I came for the storms
To find only calm
But for the storms inside
Stars and planets step down from the sky
Chasing the departed sun
While I contemplate
My own next steps
Then decide to follow
The beacon’s example
And become the light
Choose to rise
Into glorious dawn
Rather than follow the heavens
Into celestial night
Hers was the smile
Of a mother in thrall
For her child’s joy
Though her eyes gave way
To the mother’s worry
For the inherent risk of play
It was in her eyes
Where I first read
Words unspoken
Words arising
From her mind
Her heart
Her spirit
In those eyes
Was love
And disappointment
Hope
And discouragement
To hold that gaze
I would have to do better
Have to be
Better
Not just for her
But for myself
In those eyes
I read a truth
About me
I didn’t like
Time, weather, neglect
Natural reclamation
Soon enough resolved
The light within
Too dim
To illumine
My confines
A window
Lets in
The light
Of the world
Slight
Narrow
Itself confined
To a shaft
Enough to illumine
Patterns
Which become bricks
In one wall of my
Confinement
That there is a wall
Unnerves me
But a prison of bricks
Is preferable to one of darkness
So I welcome the light
Invite its wisdom
Its insight
Ask it
Is there more here than the bricks?
A soft, warm chuckle precedes its reply
There is
You will not like much of it
Many things in the light
Seem terrifying
That is the way of life
But so too is there beauty
And love
In the light
And while terror
Is found easily enough
In the darkness
Love and beauty need light
I nodded
Contemplated for a moment
Then turned to the light
I accept this challenge
And so began
The journey to discover
Me
Only the stone
And perhaps some words
Which may yet outlive the stone
From electrons dancing on copper
Then pen to paper
And now perhaps
To electrons dancing on silicon
A record for eternity
This is a bedraggled
Windswept spot of rock
On a far northern sea
The gales blow hard over open water
Make landfall with merciless ferocity
And there break the will of branch and limb
Leaving nought but the tenacious grass
Which cleaves to the rubble of shoreline stone
And here am I
Full face into this sunny storm
Turbulence heavy in my ears
As it ties knots in my swept back hair
I remind myself
Be supple
Like the grass
Bend with the buffeting
And I too can thrive
Even if life sometimes seems
A gale upon a bedraggled rock
There is no small victory
In the supple tenacity
Of just getting through a day
With grace and dignity
I may even find
A little peace in it
Perhaps some beauty
Like I do here
Today
On this western shore
Of Newfoundland