Swan

The Hamsah swan

alights without a whisper

on the still heart's lake.

You received this sound

at the highest initiation,

your birth.

Hamsah means

both swan and soul

in the first language, 

the language of mantra.

Breathe in Aham, I Am.

Welcome the grace

of your existence,

for Being is nothing but grace.

Breathe out Sah, She who 

danced with Creator

before the beginning.

Gift yourself to the Giver.

Why are you here?

To make an offering

of your body

to the one who enfolds

each atom with a kiss

and kneads each 

particle of silence

into gristle and bone.

Take a journey

of one exhalation

into the humble valley

under your breastbone.

Plant a seed in this

dark loam, teeming

with ancestors.

Fold these wings.

Let Ham and Sah dissolve

into feathered emptiness.

Before there was light,

every creature rested here,

You in I, I in You.

And with each exhalation,

we return.

It's no secret, friend:

just to breathe

is the purest worship,

and every breath 

is God's name.

Painting by Alexandra Eldridge