Vocation

When I discovered

the emerald in my chest

I gave up every calling,

wealth, adventure, fame,

just to follow this menial

vocation: I became

a Jewel Polisher.
With the tincture of awareness,
I moisten the soft ragged cloth

of this breath, burnishing

my grail until

aloneness becomes wine.

I drink, and there is plenty.

Let me ever be quenched

by my own thirst.
And when I pray without words,
let the earth, not heaven, answer

with a whisper of wildernesss,

meadow and forest, a wreathe

of insouciant cloud

on the sober mountain,
incandescent blackness of a panther’s eye

in the face of the unhoused stranger,
lips of the lover who lies beside me,

all entangled in the misty nimbus

of my breathing.
Now consider that you also

might mother a new creation

just through this work
of being still.