Point

When I lie there dying, or here,

for it is always here that we lie

or stand or walk or die,

let me not discover at last,

My God, it was the little things!

It wasn't about the party I voted for,

or whether I grokked nonduality.

It wasn't about the vegan diet,

or how many protests I attended.

It had nothing to do with karma,

or which Guru I followed.

It wasn't about becoming a Christian,

or a Muslim, or having any Way at all.

It was about gazing into the face

of a baby at Rite Aid.

It was the moment I caught and held

the eye of the fourth grade boy

behind the dark school bus window,

and said to him clearly, without words,

“I know how loneliness feels.

Therefore you are not alone.”

It was about finding the frog

who lived in my umbrella

at the corner of the porch.

The first Autumn rain, when I

unfolded it, spilling him into my hand,

and took him over to the rose pot,

placing him among the withered petals,

and spoke clearly, with clear words,

“You may live here all Winter.

I will listen for you every evening.”

It was about this kind of courage,

to speak with frogs.

About not minding garden dirt

caked on my knees, not taking

a shower on a Summer night

because I felt so good

that I planted the tomatoes.

It was the moment I sent my friend

with terminal cancer a link

to Allegri’s “Miserere,”

something as easy, as small as that.

It was about pausing on a long walk

to watch the cumulonimbus roil

into a personal face, I won't

say whose, I'll let you find your own

form of the Friend, who really does

appear in clouds, in trees, in toadstools

that spring up at midnight in glistening rings.

It was about the courage to whisper

Thank You whenever that countenance

smiles upon you, the courage to confess,

"Yes, it is possible, it is not foolish,

it requires no believing, only wonder."

When I lie there dying may I dare

to tell my dear ones, "There are no

big things, only little ones, somehow

threaded in a wine-dark mandala,

a wreathe of heartbeats growing

fainter, fainter now, a circle made

of all the moments when I paid attention,

even for a breath, growing fainter now,

yet widening into blue, into the sky

of one eternal heartbeat,

the point of it all.

Photo: Old bench in my yard