The Rest of Winter

 

With your softest breath,

polish all those dusty thoughts

from your heart mirror.

Are you looking for a quiet place?

Friend, you are already here.

Repose in your own blood

between pulsations,

every vein in this body a grotto

for the pilgrim mind.

Find the secret chamber in your chest

where you have no enemies

and no one is to blame.

Make your heart an empty chalice

filled with the nectar of reflection,

where thirsty souls kneel down

to lap up moonlight just before dawn.

In this place where your journey

has no beginning,

prayers for peace need not be spoken

because they’ve already come true.

Here, even the word "love"

and all the names of God
disperse like smoke of sage in desert air.

You too evaporate

into the finer element you were

before you breathed.

You are the sparkling sky

in the lungs of a hummingbird,

the stunned stars’ silence,

an afterimage in the blackness

where a flame just blew out.

Remember that your flesh

is made of swirling suns

that vanished eons ago.

You are a threadbare remnant

of luminous entangled trails

leading to this moment of gratitude.

Distant constellations bow to you

like visiting kings bearing gifts

made of shadows.

Don’t try to understand.

Just stumble into your own rhythm,

which feels like not moving at all.

These weary bones need no 

discipline of stillness.

They merely want to heap themselves

in fur, under a hay mound

of last summer's dreams.

Be the nest inside the egg,

the womb that carries her own savior,

the wind that drops its milkweed silk

in a furrow between your breasts.

Whether you wander in loss

or abundance, this seed holds light

through the darkest season.

Whatever you meant when the fragrance

was so sweet you closed your eyes

and murmured, "Mmmmm,"

just smolder away into That.

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