Teacher

My teacher is a blossoming weed.

My teacher is a withered thistle

dispersed by the breeze on ten thousand threads.

My teacher is the motionless explosion of a rose.

The Beloved in whose moon-gaze

I swoon at midnight, only to feel

bereft in the dim light of dawn?
No, my teacher is humbler, kinder than that,

more inward to me than I.

My teacher walks through the meadow
of my flesh, scattering seeds in my furrows,

nostrils, belly, the shadow between my toes.

His seeds are syllables of silence

that root down in my empty places.

Their rhythm reminds my heart
how we surged as a single whisper

before the stars were born.
The sign of his presence is falling upward
and a warmth in my marrow.

My teacher is a golden breath of Grace

who sweeps away the Should.


Photo of my teacher by Scott Hague