In calm
resplendence


all the power of the
universe resides.

In wide open arms
Truth rushes in.

In clean emptiness
all creation begins

and we recall,
confounded and stilled,
the moment we
were born into Light,

before the tempest,
before the war,
before we forgot
who we are.

The pond is
a bleary awakening,
steeped in
blue and green and
everything pure
around it,

but there's more:

The life below—

a secret liturgy,
fierce love and
gentle pride,

a few frogs,
just eye beads
floating on their
glowering, black world—

has its own plans.

It's too busy with being
to look up
or care.

Up here it's quite
the spectacle,
all this
lunatic howling
and grasping
and snarling
that means nothing
in the end,

but there's
so much more, so
much more,
beyond this
as we find our
way back to
where we began,

where it's so clear:

Everything is perfect
in the center
of all life.


Patricia Joan Jones