ashes and dust

ashes and dust

ashes and dust

ashes and dust

my hope does not die

it disintegrates

beneath words and wounds

ancient in their weight

life is slipping

eluding my grasp –

living slips away

leave me.

speak to me no more of hope

leave me to my dust and ashes

for all I taste now is bitterness

how many times must I trade my joy for pain?

how much sorrow can a soul withstand?

ashes and dust

ashes and dust

ashes and dust

ashes and dust

how long?

where is my salvation?

The moon watches peacefully,
clutched in the sleepy grasp
of a stirring morning
as I, too, am waking
to the coming dawn.

"Wherever you are, you are in the right place to begin."
~ Gretchen Rubin

It is the letting go of what does not matter,
what cannot change,
and the laying hold of what always matters,
what has never changed
but rather transforms.
It begins with surrender.

like a memory of movement
white against the great, blue sky
I expand

settling out of my frenzy
and into myself

languidly, I drift
across this calm, silent morning

as each strand of my soul is released
to remember

that the way to live
is to die

At the end of all things
is that moment
before the letting go begins,
the tiny space
between experience and memory
when the soul is recaptured
by the tale of its own eternity --
unbound
unceasing --
until time settles in again
against my chest
(the rising sparks wink out)
transforming thought
into fond and wistful smiles.

The world is tinged uncertain
with the setting of the sun...
The last remains of hopeful rays
are trapped between the earth and low-flung sky;
and so, unable to escape
they come and settle in my soul,
which, too, is trapped
between my dusty flesh and the promise of the heavens.

The sky is made of harmonies.
The hills are made of gold.
My heart is made of footprints
on the pathway heading home.