It comes nearer, ever nearer to an ending than

a beginning of this ramble about earth.

How many steps remain, how many breaths that

cultivate strength, resilience, the mouth full

of starbursts of air and puzzles of language,

of emotion that seeps and rushes from the center

over tongue and teeth to the world?

What are the answer I have not yet sought,

the questions not fully considered?

I cannot fathom enough of it, living

and shedding and gathering and more growing.

Perhaps I knew more at fourteen than I do now

it seemed a galaxy of matters and who is to say–

but if so it was somehow turned over and inside out,

spun apart, shifted, torn and rewound

so that before I knew it, there remained a frail layer

between me and baffling landscapes…

country and city made of people who shocked and amazed;

ancient outcroppings and tiny refuges of

animal, plant , mineral and water, air and fire;

and stories strewn everywhere

–they all pull me. Still call to me.

And a magnanimous Spirit is restive,

attendant to this path and countless others, with

divine wonderings and wisdom like markers as we go.

Therein is mystery: becoming one within the whole of it.

How deep dwells the meaning of all things?

When I come to one stop there is

a doorway, still, and that clarion beckoning.

Even a stitched and worn heart gives way

to a glance of compassion,

a flicker of fireflies, a rain dance on leaves,

and the slow laydown of sun upon sinew and bone.

That I meet face to face with such life, a miracle.

So I move forward into ever more

thrum and shush and jangle and slide

of each day and night, a holy human ride.

There is all that is still unfinished,

so much more to pluck out and love.